Another New PCB for Arduino Serial Single Sided

[westfw]

Is the "Ardiuno NG or older w/Atmega168" bootloader the correct bootloader for this board?

Yes.

[Drools]

every time I try to upload a sketch via the serial cable I receive the following.
avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00
avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51

Just not working over the serial cable.
I tested the m168 in another circuit with AVR Studio and it works fine. I erased it and loaded the suggested bootloader but still no upload...
My LED13 is blinking and the RX/TX LEDs turn on when avrdude tried to write to the board. I'm using Arduino 0021.
Any help would be appreciated as I want to give this to my 10 year old son for christmas.
I have tried a USB2Serial dongle and a NULL modem cable directly off the serial port and a straight through cable off the serial port. I get the same thing everytime.

Strange thing is after I get the error the RX/TX LEDs remain on but not fully, just a faint glow...

[westfw]

You do have the board type set correctly, right?  It should match the bootloader you've burnt.  All the jumpers are in the right places?  The S3V3 board has a lot of jumpers...

Turn on "upload.verbose" by editing your preferences file.  This should give a bit more information.

you can try removing the AVR from the socket, putting a jumper in between digital pin 0 and 1 (rx/tx) on the digital headers, and talking to the board with the "serial monitor" function of the arduino IDE.  This creates what is know in the comm industry as a "digital loopback" scenario; anything you type in the serial monitor should echo back, with associated blinking of the rx/tx LEDs.  If you see no or partial echoing of your typeing even though both LEDs are blinking, then something is eating characters that should be going to the arduino...  (note that this will work regardless of incorrect speed/board settings.)

You said you can take the chip out of the homebrew board and put it in another arudino and upload it successfully?  Try putting an "echo" sketch in it (using the working arduino), then move it back to the homebrew and see if the Serial Monitor will still see typed characters (now, the speed will have to be correct.)

(I've never actually built an S3V3; having done my own design.  I'm not sure exactly what is likely to go wrong with it.  You mentioned that the LEDs stay somewhat illuminated.  Are the resistors to the LEDs the correct values?  Transistors in correctly for their particular type? (european transistors tend to have a different pinout than american transistors.  As shown on the board, the transistors used have a pinout I would call CBE, while many american transistors are EBC)

[Drools]

I have used 2N3906 in place of the BC557 and a 2N3904 in place of the BC547, in place of the non-polarized 10uf cap I made my own by joining the + leads of 2 x 22uf@50VDC electrotic caps and soldering in the negative leads. This should give me ~11uf non-polarized. I left the 100uh inductor out.
On the transistors I made sure the correct BCE was applied.  

[Drools]

This is what I get when using a Null-Modem cable on COM1@57600.

Binary sketch size: 1010 bytes (of a 14336 byte maximum)
C:\arduino-0021\hardware/tools/avr/bin/avrdude -CC:\arduino-0021\hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf -v -v -v -v -patmega168 -cstk500v1 -P\\.\COM1 -b19200 -D -Uflash:w:C:\DOCUME~1\bcarlson\LOCALS~1\Temp\build6111456757953024645.tmp\Blink.cpp.hex:i

avrdude: Version 5.4-arduino, compiled on Oct 11 2007 at 19:12:32
        Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/

        System wide configuration file is "C:\arduino-0021\hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"

        Using Port            : \\.\COM1
        Using Programmer      : stk500v1
        Overriding Baud Rate  : 19200
avrdude: ser_open(): setting dtr
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20]
avrdude: Recv:
avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x30
avrdude: Send: Q [51]   [20]
avrdude: Recv:
avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51

avrdude done.  Thank you.

[westfw]

I have used 2N3906 in place of the BC557 and a 2N3904 in place of the BC547

And it looks like you reversed the mounting, which I think is correct.

in place of the non-polarized 10uf cap I made my own by joining the + leads of 2 x 22uf@50VDC electrotic caps and soldering in the negative leads.

Sounds OK.  This design has apparently worked with a polarized cap in both possible orientations as well, so this doesn't seem to be very critical (see some of the discussions in the "simpler single sided serial" forum topics.)

I left the 100uh inductor out.

This however, is bad.  To leave this "functionally" out, you should replace it with a plain jumper.  Otherwise you have no power to the AVCC pin, which is "not good."  I don't know if it immediately explains the problems you are having; partially powered chips behave in all sorts of odd ways!