I have built a Mintduino, and it appears to be running correctly. However, when I try to upload a sketch via the FTDI Friend I get the error "avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding". The Mintduino doesn't seem to respond to the reset button when I've connected my laptop to the board, although it will respond when I remove the USB cable from the laptop.
I'm using Arduino 1.0 on Mac OS X 10.6.8. I've been able to upload sketches to my Arduino Uno, but have not yet managed to do so with the Mintduino. One question I have is which board I should select: the Mintduino doesn't show up on the list, so I've tried selecting most of the boards that have a 328 (which the Mintduino uses). I have check to see that the FTDI Friend is showing up, so that makes me think it's working.
ScampDog:
One question I have is which board I should select: the Mintduino doesn't show up on the list, so I've tried selecting most of the boards that have a 328 (which the Mintduino uses).
The product page doesn't make it clear which bootloader is being used. So you will need to select either the Duemilanove w/328 or Uno.
ScampDog:
I have check to see that the FTDI Friend is showing up, so that makes me think it's working.
In what way is it showing up? OS X doesn't ship with FTDI drivers, so do you need to install drivers before the serial port appears.
Thanks for the advice. I've installed the FTDI drivers and tried selecting the Uno as my board, and am still getting the same message. I started worrying that the 9V battery was weak, so I removed it and wired the breadboard's power rails to the +5V line of the FTDI Friend. The LEDs seemed to glow a bit brighter, but it didn't help the download problem.
The FTDI shows up as dev/tty.usbserial-A4006Djt under the Arduino IDE's Tools->Serial Ports menu, which I hope means that it's been found by the OS and is capable of communication.
When I click the "Upload" control in the IDE, the Mintduino resets, but begins running the program that came with the AVR chip. I've double-checked the wiring from the ATmega 328 to the FTDI Friend and it seems to be OK.
I know a few other people using Arduinos, so I will try programming the Mintduino from a PC to see if that changes anything.
Edited: I just tried the loopback test, and it works.
ScampDog:
so I removed it and wired the breadboard's power rails to the +5V line of the FTDI Friend.
I like root canals better than 9Vs. (The former usually comes with pain killers.)
ScampDog:
The FTDI shows up as dev/tty.usbserial-A4006Djt under the Arduino IDE's Tools->Serial Ports menu, which I hope means that it's been found by the OS and is capable of communication.
Yes, that is a good sign. Looks like the right kind of serial device name.
ScampDog:
When I click the "Upload" control in the IDE, the Mintduino resets, but begins running the program that came with the AVR chip. I've double-checked the wiring from the ATmega 328 to the FTDI Friend and it seems to be OK.
You could try to manually pressing Reset. 1-2 seconds after "the Sketch Size" message appears in the GUI, reset the AVR. Try it a couple of times.
OK, here's the latest on trying to get the Mintduino talking to my Mac laptop.
I realized that I could watch the Tx/Rx LEDs on the FTDI Friend, and found that when I try to upload a program to the Mintduino, I see the Tx LED flash, but never the Rx LED. When I do the loopback test, I see the two LEDs flash in unison, indicating that the receive pin is seeing (and transmitting back) the transmitted data. (This is Tx for data transmitted to the Mintduino from the laptop, and Rx for the Arduino sending data to the laptop).
I have tried pressing the reset button at various intervals, but without any luck so far. I haven't meet the PC-based Arduino users, yet, so that's my other hope at the moment.
Yes, I get one flash immediately after releasing the reset button, then it pauses for a bit, and then goes into the original program, making faster and faster flashes until it's on continuously for a moment. Then it turns off.
That behavior doesn't sound quite right. I would expect Pin 13 to just Flash or it to flash in moorse code. Either way, it should be continuous. Where you able to program this chip once already?
The Mintduino's chip comes already programmed with a blinking light sketch, so you can tell if you've wired it up correctly. It is a fairly odd pattern--I'm used to seeing constant-rate blinking, but the Mintduino blinking is supposed to terminate, according to the build instructions. I was really pleased to see it light up like that first time I applied power, if you don't mind a bit of bragging. I haven't been able to program it myself yet, although I have been able to program my Arduino Uno board.
It is impressive to be able to wire-up the circuit and it work!
Is the ATmega328 in your Uno removable? You could try swapping the ATmegas around to see if you can program either. The board selection in the IDE, "Duemilanove or Uno", is based on the bootloader on the ATmega328. So if you put an ATmega328 from your Uno into your Mintudino breadboard, you would be programming it with a "Uno" selected while just changing the serial port to the FTDI cable.
Vice versa you can put your Mintduino's ATmega328 into an Uno and try programming it there. (Again, I'm not sure if it is a Duemilanove or Uno bootloader, so you might have to try both.)
