can I extend the rx and tx serial signals ?

For my sins, I disconnected my current project from the arduino board, and fitted a small pcb with a plug-in 328, as I thought I had finished programming. Of course now I can't see whats going on with the serial monitor.

One of the projects has shown up a strange problem, but of course I have no ISP lead, ( and I didnt put a socket on the board )

Looking at the circuit http://brittonkerin.com/annotateduino/annotatable_duemilanove.html it looks like the only connections between the FT232 and the chip, are the tx rx and reset pins.

So as I have nothing connected to these pins on my embedded chip ( apart from the reset pullup 12k ) it seems that I should be able to run 5 wires from the embedded chips tx rx reset, gnd and 5v, to the pins on my empty arduino board, and be able to see whats going on.

Has anyone done this?

the only connections between the FT232 and the chip, are the tx rx and reset pins.7

Correct.

I haven't done it but I see no reason why you can't run the wires over to the empty socket on the Arduino. But not 5v if that's available on the embedded board.

Your local 12k pullup will then be in parallel with the Arduinos pullup (10k?), this will affect the rest pulse duration but maybe not enough to matter.

But if you're embedded CPU is socketed you can just swap it back into the Arduino.

Does the CPU have a bootloader installed?

Rob

The problem is that if I plug the chip back into the arduino, its not connected to the 60 display chips or the receiver, or the seperate decoder.

I will give it a go when I get another chance ( 2 jobs to get out by Monday, and I have the washing machine in bits on the kitchen floor ! )