atmega328 avr dragon arduino IDE OSX

Other Hardware 3rd Party Boards
1

Greetings,

I've search the internet high and low, but have had no luck in figuring out how to program a blank AVR.
There are plenty of tutorials for using the dragon with AVRstudio, but none with the arduino IDE.

My enviroment:
Mac OS 10.7
Arduino IDE 1.0.6
AVR Dragon
Atmega328

My goal is very simple...to load a blink sketch onto the chip.

My problem is that after fiddling with boards.txt preferences.txt programmers.txt ad nauseum, I can load nothing.

Can anyone confirm that this toolchain works?
I may be attempting the impossible, and knowing that upfront would be hugely helpful.

I've gotten several errors, including sck can't be set, no power on target, programmer not responding, and more...depending on how I setup the configuration files. I've also been forced by the IDE to choose a COM port, even though usb programmers shouldn't need one (if I understand correctly)

I'll add that I also have a usbasp programmer, but it has given me errors that suggest the firmware needs to be updated. That's probably why I bought he dragon. (it's been awhile, I can't really remember)

My apologies for the scarse details, I've been fighting this thing for the last 4 hours, and my brain isn't working all that great.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
David

To have this much tro

2

I don't think you can use the Dragon on OS/X.

Do you have an Arduino at all? Or just the blank chip?

If you have an Arduino lying around programming a chip is easy enough.

Atmega bootloader programmer

Are you planning to install a bootloader? Or just a sketch without a bootloader? You can use an Arduino as ISP to install sketches in general, search for that on this site.

no power on target,

The Dragon does not supply power to the target board, you have to do that. It just monitors the power level, giving that message if you haven't provided power.

3

Hi Nick,
Thanks very much for replying. Your name has come up in my research as many have been grateful for your code releases.

My continuing research turned up this page: AVR Dragon for burning sketches - Installation & Troubleshooting - Arduino Forum
Which seems to indicate the dragon is supported in some way, despite my lack of success.

I don't have an arduino at the moment.
I'd like to upload a sketch without a bootloader.
Quite right about the vcc supply, the dragon doesn't include power for the target board in the isp cable... So I ran a separate jumper to power the target.

It's been awhile since I ordered this chips, but I believe they are "blank" i.e. no bootlaoder.

To make sure I had a clean slate for this process I uninstalled the arduino IDE, and removed the ~/library/arduino and ~/documents/arduino folders

I connected my chip as noted below,
and make one edit the the programmers.txt file adding the lines:

dragon.name=Atmel AVR Dragon in ISP mode
dragon.communication=usb
dragon.protocol=dragon_isp

chip pin 1 rst (also a 10k pullup resistor to the vcc rail)

chip pin 7 vcc
chip pin 8 gnd

chip pin 17 mosi
chip pin 18 miso
chip pin 19 sck

chip pin 20 "vtg" (voltage sense)
chip pin 21 gnd

also
.1 caps between vcc and gnd on both breadboard rails.

vcc supplied by dragon via a jumper from the "vcc header" to the vcc rail
(5.0 volts according to spec sheet)

rails are tied together, vcc to vcc and gnd to gnd

Power to the breadboard is confirmed by an led from vcc to gnd.

error messages....

  1. When selecting dragon as the programer, and uploading a sketch a popup window says "Serial port COM1 not found. Retry the upload with another serial port?"
    availible selections are
    /dev/tty.Blutooth-Modem
    /dev/cu.Blutooth-Modem
    /dev/tty.Blutooth-PDA-Sync
    /dev/cu.Blutooth-PDA-Sync

  2. when attempting to burn a bootloader
    Arduino: 1.0.6 (Mac OS X), Board: "Arduino Duemilanove w/ ATmega328"
    avrdude: jtagmkII_setparm(): bad response to set parameter command: RSP_FAILED
    avrdude: jtagmkII_getsync(): ISP activation failed, trying debugWire
    avrdude: jtagmkII_setparm(): bad response to set parameter command: RSP_DEBUGWIRE_SYNC_FAILED
    avrdude: failed to sync with the AVR Dragon in ISP mode
    avrdude: jtagmkII_close(): timeout/error communicating with programmer (status -1)

Again, many thanks for the reply.
David

4

I found another post that relates to this project.

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/863.12/people/charles.fracchia/wk6.html#dragon

It appears that my steps so far are correct, at least according to this guide.

--David