This is my first time working with arduino. I followed this tutorial exactly: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Standalone
I also think theres a thread about this on the old forum: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1294809554
However I haven't been able to get mine to work. I have everything hooked up like it said in the tutorial, Im using a sparkfun ft232r breakout and an atmega328 on mac os 10.6 (snow leopard).When i hit the reset switch/add power to the board a green led hooked up to pin 13 starts pulsing, slowly at first, then goes faster and stops (takes about 5 seconds). After that it doesn't do it again until i reset/unplug+replug power. I've tried hitting reset right before uploading a sketch and every single time it says "stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding". I'm using the cu.usbserial port to upload and I have my board set to "duemilanove or nano w/ atmega 328". Please help!
Did you connect VCCIO on your breakout board to +5v? The FT232RL breakout board ships with VCCIO set to 3.3v.
Do you have a breadboard with split power rails? Some have the + and - rails along each side split in the middle. If you expect the rails to be continuous like in the tutorial you won't have power on one side.
Have you checked your 7-18v power supply?
Does your ATmega328 have the bootloader?
So the breakout is only supplying 3.3v to the breadboard? I read something about a solder jumper... I'll try changing it to 5v. And I think the breadboard has split power rails
heres a picture of my setup:
The atmega does have a bootloader. when i power it an led connected to pin 13 pulses, which is supposed to indicate the presence of a bootloader. And what is the 7-18v power supply?
still not luck. I desoldered the jumper and the breakout is now supplying 5v to the board. Is there a specific timing to when i should push reset when uploading a sketch?
Yes: Try to time it at the point where the codesize appears: that's approximately where avrdude starts.
OR, put a 100uF capacitor between RESET and the DTR pin on the breakout: that will enable auto-reset for uploading.
Didn't work. The led pulsed a few times, the tx led on the breakout lit up, but i have yet to see the rx light up.
Is your breadboard like this one?
yes, but the connection is not broken midway on the rows (or side columns when oriented properly). I have used a multimeter on all the connection points where power should be flowing, and all are 5 volts. It's not a power issue with the breadboard. I think it's actually not a breadboard at all. I believe it's actually an issue with the ft232 breakout. I think i improperly de-soldered the solder jumper. I'll try it again and see if that works.
okie doke i totally de-soldered the jumped and still no luck.
I don't see any bypass capacitors....
Don
OR, put a 100uF capacitor between RESET and the DTR pin on the breakout
No .... a 0.1uF to 1uF at the most.
Is there a specific timing to when i should push reset when uploading a sketch?
I hold the reset button down and when the loading message appears, I leave a two second gap and then release it. You have to get it righht and I don't always.
Oops... I meant nF (100nF = 0.1 uF). Didn't realize I gave the wrong value.