Hi all.
I can successfully upload my sketch to the Arduino board, as long as the board as power, the sketch will run forever, but if i switch OFF the power, say to go to bed, in the morning when i switch the power back ON, all i get is the LED on the Arduino board flashing rapidly ?? Part of my hardware includes a 16 x 2 LCD the back light comes on when i power up, but the screen is blank ??
I have searched the forums and troubleshooting sites, but nothing seems quiet clear.
My Arduino Uno R3 is the DIP socket version.
Can anyone supply a countermeasure for this problem, it has to be simple, i am a newbie.
Hi
Many thanks for your reply.
It was bought for me off E Bay uk, by my son, i believe it came from China, it did at first hold the sketch, but i cannot remember exactly what i was doing when it went into it's current state.
I have just replaced the ATMEGA328 that was supplied with my Arduino Uno R3, with a pre loaded, Bootloader, ATMEGA 328P - PU. uploaded my sketch and hey presto, everything works fine, even after powering off and powering on again, so i guess there is a problem with the original Chip, i tried loading the simple "Hello World" sketch onto it, it uploaded ok, but lost everything still when power was switched off.
This hobby is turning out to be so frustrating it's beyond word, i have never had so many faults one after the other, it seems i am chasing my tail.
Feeling chuffed about putting right, my sketch retaining problem, when power is off the Arduino board, i thought right it's time to move onto the next stage of my project, which is to save my Arduino Uno for another day, and put a chip permanently on a pcd (breadboard) along with my other components.
Firstly i switched off all power to the Arduino, then i removed all the wires from The Arduino to the Breadboard, i removed the ATMEGA 328P from the Arduino Uno and placed it in my Breadboard, then i started to connect it up to my other components (LCD, LM35 LED's etc. Nothing worked, the LCD powered up, i had a backlight to it, but no readout that was in english, it was in gobbledegook, so i retraced my steps, checked the wiring as per a Datasheet i downloaded from the net showing a pin to pin chart, still no joy, so i decided to check the Chip back in the Arduino, i plugged the chip into the Arduino and powered up, no surprises yet as the LED blinked once and stayed on, so i decided to run my sketch again, and this time the RX led flashed 4 times, after about 5 seconds i get this message "AVRDUDE.exe : stk500_getsync() :not in sync : resp = 0x00
Does anyone know what i am doing wrong, need your help, i am losing the will to live.
manofgresley:
This hobby is turning out to be so frustrating it's beyond word
Frustration is a part of learning. Electronics as a hobby contains constant learning. So that means there is always a thread of frustration.
manofgresley:
i have never had so many faults one after the other, it seems i am chasing my tail.
When you buy super cheap components on eBay, it is often the case you cost yourself lots of time and energy to get things to work. When starting out, I always suggest buying components from reptuable suppliers. If you have trouble you a) have someone with a vested interest in helping and b) some reasonable assurance the parts work. And in the case they don't, you can usually work out replacement.
manofgresley:
put a chip permanently on a pcd (breadboard) along with my other components.
Not sure what you mean by "pcd". When you say breadboard are you talking about the type of board you can easily swap out components? Or a general purpose "perf board"? they tend to have similar layouts, but the perf board approach is more permanent.
manofgresley:
i removed the ATMEGA 328P from the Arduino Uno and placed it in my Breadboard
What about decoupling capacitors, the external crystal (or oscillator), and any voltage regulators?
Just a figure of speech, my frustration comes from my own expectations. I will try another ploy.
I have come to one conclusion though, as a Mechanical Engineer with a Hons, Degree, and 50 years experience man and boy at Mechanics. A lot of advice on these help forums, especially on this subject are replied to by people who automatically think you are going to understand there answers, as you say, it's all part of the learning curve. I think you have something though, i did not use any crystals or decoupling capacitors (whatever they are) can you guide me to a circuit and or picture of a circuit, with components required, i can follow circuits and drawings, but i do not know fully what all the electronic components do.
I have a simple sketch to monitor temperature with an LM 35 Which as i have said previously as worked, if youknow what i have done wrong, can you spell it out so that i can learn and correct my mistakes?