So I think I figured out my problem, I never set the fuses on the 16u2, which means its still running at a mere 2MHz, this would explain why everything was behaving the way they where, the 2560 was sending data faster than the 16u2 could catch and translate it, I had just thrown the chip into DFU mode and burned the firmware onto it, guess I need to check my ICSP header tomorrow to see what is wrong so that I can set the fuses...

I thought that to, don't remember what happened when I set the clock divide, but I changed it back for some reason, also, forgot to mention that the bootloader doesn't seem to be starting up right, it doesn't do its triple flash then stop, it just keeps blinking (fairly quickly too);

EDIT: I find it strange though that I would need to set that bit, as the fuses are labeled as lfuse:0xFF hfuse:0xD8 efuse:0xFD in the boards.txt file, and the clock divide changes lfuse to 0x7F...

EDIT 2: This is very strange, it fixes my issue with not being able to upload with the bootloader and the baud rate issue, but now the timing is funny, delay(1000) seems to delay for about 8 seconds, and delay(100) is closer to a second, would really like to know what is going on with my board...

So I finally got the 16U2 replaced on my board [the original died for no reason and the warranty had slipped my mind till some time after my first attempt to replace the chip] but successfully got a replacement reworked onto the board, programmed it, and tested it with the loop back, it works perfectly. Problem is that for some reason, I can't upload to the board with bootloader, but I can upload code through a DAPA cable no problem, so after messing with serial communication, it seams that my board is sending serial data at a baud rate exactly 8x faster than what I tell it to, I have to program it to 1200 baud to achieve 9600, anyone have any clue what is happening here? the most I can think is maybe a misconfigured fuse, but other than that I'm stumped... any help would be appreciated

I'm guessing you've already tried uploading to COM3 with the board plugged in?

Well I removed the old chip and put on the new one, but somethings wrong, the chip showed up on my computer, when I first plugged in my Arduino to program the new chip, as a atmega16u2 DFU mode, so I powered up FLIP and burned the firmware through the USB port (one of the things wrong is that I can't program the chip through the ICSP header, it doesn't respond with anything, it appears that it sees the chip as being there, partially (hard to explain at the moment cause its hard to remember and its been several days since I had tried to program it, college was keeping me busy), anyways I do have issues trying to burn the bootloader back onto the mega2560, I think its issues from how I modified my Parallel programmer, I had resoldered all the wires so as to shorten the 2 foot 8 inch cable to a 2 foot 7 inch cable and soldered the exposed wire in the cord (which comes in contact with the "Faraday" shield) to try and help block interference, though the length of the cord is probably too long, but I digress, when I try to burn the bootloader back onto the mega2560, most of the attempts end with a supposedly successful writing, but 2 of the fuses are changed in the process, and I am still unable to communicate serially with my Arduino or even program it.

any insight on the length of my parallel cables?
what about theories of what may be wrong on my Arduino that is still preventing serial communication? it doesn't appear to have any shorts (visible at least), and the only two contacts that I lifted from the board by accident when applying new solder for the 16u2 where for unconnected pins on the chip and are therefore unneeded.

also as a side note, it seams that my Arduino is now partially powered when I plug my parallel programmer into the iscp headers (it happens with both); I don't recall it doing this before the work and therefore leads me to believe that there is a short somewhere.

again thanks in advance for any help, comments, insight, or anything

theres nothing for me to use the iron on though, thats the problem, the package they use for the 16u2 on the Mega2560 is pinless, it just has exposed spots under the chip, and on top of that, its a VERY tiny chip

So Atmel is being gracious enough to send me a "sample" of the 16U2, but the nozzle on my mom's heat gun is about the size of a dime, so I guess I'll have to find some way of shrinking the nozzles size

what does that tip actually do? cause I had been thinking of just using a heat gun my mom has, which I think has a nozzle that is roughly as small as the chip [actually I think its a little smaller than the chip, and its a round hole], I had not realized I would need a certain tip.

I'm hoping to get a 16u2 soon, I was thinking of trying a heat gun to desolder the bad chip and then solder on the new chip by applying some solder to the pins on the board and using the heat gun on the chip because of it being a VQFN, but I'm worried about causing problems for nearby components, like the RX and TX LEDs, and the other various components that are very close, If I can't get that done then I will definitely check out the FTDI chip(s).

Any tips on soldering with a heat gun? or a more efficient way of soldering on the QFN chip? I though about possibly building a reflow oven thing and using that[as a last resort for replacing this chip], but I don't want to melt the plastic on the pin headers.

whats the difference between the ATMega16U2-MU and the 16U2-MUR?

they seam to be the same package type and all that good stuff, but what does the R mean?

like I said, I've got a parallel programmer, so I can program the chip through the ICSP header next to it, and no, I don't have any other of these "pocket programmers" that you speak of, nor do I have another arduino. I'm thinking I need to find a different solution though cause Atmel refuses to send samples to anyone using anything other than a business email, maybe I can get a chip from Microchip or something, anyone have some recommendations on chips that are good for serial to USB?

how do I get the new chip on?

So a while ago the mega16U2 some how burnt out on me, so I built a parallel programmer so that I could program my Mega2560 anyways, unfortunately, I desire to have serial communication with a computer now, but since I don't have the handy dandy 16U2 to do the serial to USB conversion, I'm at a disadvantage, so my question is, how can I remove and solder on a new ATmega16U2 in place of the old one?

PS: the reason I believe the current 16U2 to be fried is cause my mega doesn't show up on my computer at all, and when attempting to reflash the 16U2 with my parallel programmer, it fails miserably with several errors, including not returning a device signature corresponding to the 16U2

Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance

Well I finally got my parallel programmer built, and I used the following command to try and flash my 16u2

Code:

C:\arduino\arduino-1.0.1\hardware\tools\avr\bin>avrdude -C ../etc/avrdude.conf -
p m16u2 -F -c dapa -U flash:w:../../../arduino/firmwares/Arduino-COMBINED-dfu-us
bserial-atmega16u2-Mega2560-Rev3.hex -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m -U hfuse:w:0xD9:m -U efus
e:w:0xF4:m -U lock:w:0x0F:m -v

but I get this...

Code:

C:\arduino\arduino-1.0.1\hardware\tools\avr\bin>avrdude -C ../etc/avrdude.conf -
p m16u2 -F -c dapa -U flash:w:../../../arduino/firmwares/Arduino-COMBINED-dfu-us
bserial-atmega16u2-Mega2560-Rev3.hex -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m -U hfuse:w:0xD9:m -U efus
e:w:0xF4:m -U lock:w:0x0F:m -v

avrdude: Version 5.11, compiled on Sep  2 2011 at 19:38:36
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2009 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "../etc/avrdude.conf"

         Using Port                    : lpt1
         Using Programmer              : dapa
         AVR Part                      : ATmega16U2
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PC6
         RESET disposition             : possible i/o
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page
      Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  Max
W   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ---
-- ---------
           eeprom        65    20     4    0 no        512    4    128  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           flash         65     6   128    0 yes     16384  128    128  4500  45
00 0x00 0x00
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0
 0 0x00 0x00
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0
 0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : PPI
         Description     : Direct AVR Parallel Access cable
           VCC     = 3
           BUFF    =  (not used)
           RESET   = 16
           SCK     = 1
           MOSI    = 2
           MISO    = 11
           ERR LED = 0
           RDY LED = 0
           PGM LED = 0
           VFY LED = 0

avrdude: AVR device not responding
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions
avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes!  Invalid device signature.
avrdude: Expected signature for ATmega16U2 is 1E 94 89
avrdude: NOTE: FLASH memory has been specified, an erase cycle will be performed

         To disable this feature, specify the -D option.

avrdude done.  Thank you.


C:\arduino\arduino-1.0.1\hardware\tools\avr\bin>

Anyone got any ideas on whats going wrong?

EDIT: also, is there a way to use a parallel programmer with FLIP?

Well I finally got my parallel programmer built, and I used the following command to try and flash my 16u2

Code:

C:\arduino\arduino-1.0.1\hardware\tools\avr\bin>avrdude -C ../etc/avrdude.conf -
p m16u2 -F -c dapa -U flash:w:../../../arduino/firmwares/Arduino-COMBINED-dfu-us
bserial-atmega16u2-Mega2560-Rev3.hex -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m -U hfuse:w:0xD9:m -U efus
e:w:0xF4:m -U lock:w:0x0F:m -v

but I get this...

Code:

C:\arduino\arduino-1.0.1\hardware\tools\avr\bin>avrdude -C ../etc/avrdude.conf -
p m16u2 -F -c dapa -U flash:w:../../../arduino/firmwares/Arduino-COMBINED-dfu-us
bserial-atmega16u2-Mega2560-Rev3.hex -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m -U hfuse:w:0xD9:m -U efus
e:w:0xF4:m -U lock:w:0x0F:m -v

avrdude: Version 5.11, compiled on Sep  2 2011 at 19:38:36
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2009 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "../etc/avrdude.conf"

         Using Port                    : lpt1
         Using Programmer              : dapa
         AVR Part                      : ATmega16U2
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PC6
         RESET disposition             : possible i/o
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page
      Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  Max
W   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ---
-- ---------
           eeprom        65    20     4    0 no        512    4    128  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           flash         65     6   128    0 yes     16384  128    128  4500  45
00 0x00 0x00
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  90
00 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0
 0 0x00 0x00
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0
 0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : PPI
         Description     : Direct AVR Parallel Access cable
           VCC     = 3
           BUFF    =  (not used)
           RESET   = 16
           SCK     = 1
           MOSI    = 2
           MISO    = 11
           ERR LED = 0
           RDY LED = 0
           PGM LED = 0
           VFY LED = 0

avrdude: AVR device not responding
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions
avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes!  Invalid device signature.
avrdude: Expected signature for ATmega16U2 is 1E 94 89
avrdude: NOTE: FLASH memory has been specified, an erase cycle will be performed

         To disable this feature, specify the -D option.

avrdude done.  Thank you.


C:\arduino\arduino-1.0.1\hardware\tools\avr\bin>

Anyone got any ideas on whats going wrong?