Arduino Mini w/ 328 problems

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

I am trying to upload the blink example program to the arduino mini with the 328 chip. Here is what I did:

I have an uno with the 328 dip chip removed. The serial cable is connected from the computer to the uno. Power and ground are connected from the arduino to the corresponding rails on my breadboard. From there, I have the mini powered. I also have the reset pin on the uno connected to the reset pin on the mini. I have the TX from the uno to the TX of the mini and RX from uno to RX of mini. I have an led connected at digital pin 13 on the mini, to ground.

Everything seems to work fine. Here is what I can observe:
When I hit the reset button on the uno and hit the upload button right after, the led I put on pin 13 of the uno (always on) blinks a few times and the TX and RX lights blink as usual and then the TX light flashes every half second. The led I put on pin 13 stays on.

What's going on?

2

Need more details - which IDE, which board type are you selecting, does the Mini have a bootloader installed already?

3

I think IDE 1.0 and I selected the mini with 328 option. I honestly don't know if it has bootloader. Iets assume I don't. What now.

4

Put a bootloader on.
Put your Uno back together.
Download & install westfw's optiloader.

Connect up power/gnd, D13 to D13, D12 to D12, D11 to D11, Uno D10 to mini's Reset.
Reset the Uno, it will detect the mini & put the bootloader on it.
See the video in this thread
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,68183.0.html

5

The Mini comes with a bootloader on it and you should be able to get it to work without burning a new one.

You might try with Arduino 1.0.1 (just released). We updated the avrdude programmer type used to upload the sketch to the Mini, which should make the auto-reset work more reliably.

6

Works Great! 1.0.1 rocks!

Thanks a million! :smiley: