Running on a budget, I decided to buy an el cheapo Pro Mini on ebay for $2.50 or so, and I got what I paid for: a Chinese clone of the thing with the brand "Deek Robot".
(Comparison with Sparkfun's here: )
It is supposed to be a Pro Mini 5V at 16 MHz with the ATMega328.
I neglected to buy an FTDI cable to connect it to the computer, but I learned recently that I could still upload code to it with a working UNO, which I do have and have been tinkering around with for a while. I followed the instructions here [SOLVED] Deek/Dswy Robot Mini Pro - can't upload a sketch & bootloader - Installation & Troubleshooting - Arduino Forum, in the third quote block, but I always got the "not in sync" error regardless of how I timed my reset button press.
I looked around on the site and found that this error could be a result of a missing bootloader, so I followed the instructions in the earlier link, in the second quote block, to burn a new bootloader. I would get the protocol error, however, with the message "expected=0x14, got=0x51" or something similar. After this, though, the LED by the reset button on the Pro Mini still lights up and turns off once a second, so it looks to me it has a working bootloader running the built-in Blink sample program (probably?) just fine.
Does the Pro Mini sound like it's not defective or missing the bootloader? If it isn't, how would I resolve the "not in sync" problem? Or if buying a USB-to-TTL cable is a better solution for uploading code, what could I buy and still keep costs down? (The FTDI breakout board on Sparkfun is very expensive compared to the el cheapo Pro Mini I got, which hopefully still works)
Running on a budget, I decided to buy an el cheapo Pro Mini on ebay for $2.50 or so, and I got what I paid for: a Chinese clone of the thing with the brand "Deek Robot".
(Comparison with Sparkfun's here: )
It is supposed to be a Pro Mini 5V at 16 MHz with the ATMega328.
I neglected to buy an FTDI cable to connect it to the computer, but I learned recently that I could still upload code to it with a working UNO, which I do have and have been tinkering around with for a while. I followed the instructions here [SOLVED] Deek/Dswy Robot Mini Pro - can't upload a sketch & bootloader - IDE 1.x - Arduino Forum, in the third quote block, but I always got the "not in sync" error regardless of how I timed my reset button press.
I looked around on the site and found that this error could be a result of a missing bootloader, so I followed the instructions in the earlier link, in the second quote block, to burn a new bootloader. I would get the protocol error, however, with the message "expected=0x14, got=0x51" or something similar. After this, though, the LED by the reset button on the Pro Mini still lights up and turns off once a second, so it looks to me it has a working bootloader running the built-in Blink sample program (probably?) just fine.
Does the Pro Mini sound like it's not defective or missing the bootloader? If it isn't, how would I resolve the "not in sync" problem? Or if buying a USB-to-TTL cable is a better solution for uploading code, what could I buy and still keep costs down? (The FTDI breakout board on Sparkfun is very expensive compared to the el cheapo Pro Mini I got, which hopefully still works)
Thank you very much!
I bought like 5 of them for $15 a while back and found no problem with them. I did jury rigged a FTDI module to one and was able to upload but it seemed like more work then it was worth. The way I planned on using the pro-minis were as submodules plugged into standalone PCB projects, so I decided to erase the bootloader and only use ISCP programming of the module using a USBasp programmer I bought for like $8 a while back. So I build a like "module holder" that makes the needed 6 pin ISCP pins avalible so I can just plug the pro-mini into it, burn the sketch and then plug the pro-mini into it's larger PCB. Pics below:
I use these all the time, and have never had an issue
I do have several FTDI adaptors, some with DTR some without. The ones that don't have DTR you need to manually hold the reset button on the mini arduino board just after you press the upload button in the IDE and wait until the progress bar gets to about 80% and stops while it waits for the Ardiuno
When the progress gets to 80% and stops getting higher, you release the reset on the mini arduino and it does the upload.
If you are using a Uno board, you need to remove the ATMega328 (i.e main chip), as it would interfere with the signals to the Mini Arduino.
The other option is to use the Arduino UNO as a programmer, i.e load the Arduino ISP sketch from the examples.
But taking the ATMega out of the Uno is the easiest option
Thank you for your responses! I apologize for the late response; it turned out I did a sloppy job soldering the Pro Mini, and I ended up using a USB CP2102 to program the thing as I'm unable to take the ATMEGA off the UNO. Nonetheless, problem solved!
