I've been playing around with a Arduino Uno for a while now, and I was trying to get my Arduino Nano V3.0 to run some of the basic examples, but I keep having issues with the pin 13 LED blinking rapidly. I have seen some other forum posts about this issue, but I am not sure if it is the same thing.
Unlike some of the other posts, when I just upload blink example it works fine for a little while, but after some time the pin 13 LED starts blinking randomly, then it blinks extremely rapidly. Sometimes blink starts working again, but sometimes it continues the rapid blinking until I unplug and replug the USB cable. It also does this when I try uploading an example that does not use pin 13 as an output.
Trying to upload while it is blinking rapidly results in:
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
I also tried using the Arduino IDE's:
Arduino 1.6.11 (on Ubuntu 16.04)
Arduino 1.6.11 (on Windows 8.1)
Any advice would be appreciated. Please let me know if you need additional info.
Thanks!
Without any good explanation of why, my next step in troubleshooting would be to load (or reload) the opti bootloader into the Nano and hope the problem goes away. You'd then, of course, have to treat the Nano as a Uno for uploading sketches etc.
Load the basic blink sketch from the examples and connect the Arduino to a powered USB hub WITHOUT connection to the computer. Does it blink "forever"?
Fast blinking is an indication that the boot loader took over because the USB connection was reset by the computer.
olf2012:
Load the basic blink sketch from the examples and connect the Arduino to a powered USB hub WITHOUT connection to the computer. Does it blink "forever"?
Fast blinking is an indication that the boot loader took over because the USB connection was reset by the computer.
olf2012,
I tried connecting the Nano with Blink loaded to a USB power supply that wasn't connected to a computer at all. Still had the exact same issue. Thanks for the suggestion though.
6v6gt:
Without any good explanation of why, my next step in troubleshooting would be to load (or reload) the opti bootloader into the Nano and hope the problem goes away. You'd then, of course, have to treat the Nano as a Uno for uploading sketches etc.
6v6gt and olf2012,
Some of the other posts that had a similar issue mentioned reloading the boot loader as well. I think it is something I should definitely try, but I've never had to do it with the uno so I'm not sure exactly how to do it. I know I need a programmer for this, but when I looked into it I noticed that there are a lot of different programmers. Is there one that you would recommend me using?
Sorry I haven't posted in a while...forgot where my Uno walked off to.
So I started hooking up the Uno as a programmer as described in the link provided by 6v6gt (https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoISP) when I noticed that when I just connected the ground and 5V pin of the Uno to the nano the blink sketch worked just fine. I waited a long period of time and there was no rapid blinking. So I talked to a friend of mine and he said that it seemed like an issue with the nano receiving power from the mini USB cables. He suggested putting a 1 micro farad capacitor between the ground pin and 5V pin when I connect to it with a USB cable. I did that and so far it seems to be working just fine. The weird thing is that I tried removing the capacitor to see if I could repeat the original problem, and now it is still working without the capacitor.
I am going to try working with it for a while to see if the issue returns. I'll post if I notice any changes. If anybody has any ideas as to what may have changed I would love to hear your thoughts.
So just thought I would post back here again since its been a while. I stopped using my nano again for a few months and it started doing that weird flashing LED again and not letting me upload. I connected my UNO +5V and GND to it and it worked again. Now I wonder if its just not getting sufficient power from the USB cable. I checked the +5V pin with a DMM and its only reading about 2VDC. I also tried powering from an independent 5VDC power supply and it seems to be working just fine. Currently using it to control about 300 neopixels so that's great!
There is a diode on the bottom of the board under the USB connector. The USB power goes through that to the rest of the board. The solder joints on that diode are probably cold. I have had the diode fall off of a Nano before. Tack it on better with a small amount of extra solder.