Checking Arduino Lilypad for short

Using Arduino IDE 1.x
1

Hello! I was previously using an arduino Mega2560 to program a lilypad. PAIN IN THE A**! I bought the sparkfun FTDI basic, and have a few questions.

  1. I think the lilypad may have a short circuit. I have a multimeter/ohm meter and am wondering if there is a test I can do to see if this is the case.

  2. If it did have a short, and my first question's answer is "no that won't help you check", would plugging a faulty board into the FTDI basic cause it to short/break my FTDI basic?

  3. Can I just plug the USB into the FTDI basic, and the Lilypad (328) into the FTDI and upload my code? How do i set this up in the settings of the Arduino IDE? I have the boards configured, I just need to know which programmer to set it as, or if I need to download one.

2

  1. Why do you think that? Yes, use a multimeter to measure between pins for shorts. Note that capacitors and parallel resistances may give changing results as caps charge up. Measuring Vcc to Gnd may give a reading of low K's of ohms as well.

  2. Maybe. If Vcc is shorted to Gnd, the PC supplying 5V may have a problem. If 3.3V is shorted to Gnd, that may fry the FT232 chip that can supply 50mA of current. If Rx, Tx or DTR are shorted to Gnd, that may or may not damage the FTDI outputs.

  3. Yes. Under Tools:Board, be sure to select the board type that matches your Lilypad.
    You are not selecting a Programmer, the FTDI is just the USB/Serial interface, it is not a Programmer that connects to the ICSP header pins (SCK, MISO, MOSI, Reset, power, Gnd) to load a bootloader typically.

Why was the Mega so hard? All you have to do short its Reset pin to Gnd, connect up Power, Gnd, Rx, Tx, and press Reset on the Lilypad after the IDE shows "compiled xxx of 32xxx bytes". Or Press & Hold Reset, then release it when you see the message. Selecting File:Preferences and turning on Verbose outputs can make the timing easier to catch.

3

The mega was hard because I am very poor, and I was using not-actual-jumper-wires, and some didn't work. There is VERY poor documentation for using the MEGA as an ISP to the Lilypad as well, so I was looking from 3 different websites to make sure it was connected properly.

Thanks for telling me about the uploading using a programmer. FYI, NOWHERE on the arduino site, sparkfun, or other did I find information about this little fact: YOU HAVE TO HOLD SHIFT TO UPLOAD USING PROGRAMMER WITH THE ARDUINO IDE. I spent 3 days trying to figure out why my first arduino sketch wouldn't upload, first time round, until a youtube comment mentioned that little nugget of information.

4

Hi. am using arduino uno r3 having the problem L indication LED is continuously blinking and i can not upload or dump program

please find the below error and reply

Arduino: 1.8.5 (Linux), Board: "Arduino/Genuino Uno"

Archiving built core (caching) in: /tmp/arduino_cache_480616/core/core_arduino_avr_uno_5ae566d2b74f299eedfb0fc6b9173d06.a
Sketch uses 928 bytes (2%) of program storage space. Maximum is 32256 bytes.
Global variables use 9 bytes (0%) of dynamic memory, leaving 2039 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 2048 bytes.
/snap/arduino-mhall119/5/hardware/tools/avr/bin/avrdude -C/snap/arduino-mhall119/5/hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf -v -patmega328p -carduino -P/dev/ttyACM0 -b115200 -D -Uflash:w:/tmp/arduino_build_478206/Blink.ino.hex:i

avrdude: Version 6.3, compiled on Jan 17 2017 at 11:00:16
Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

System wide configuration file is "/snap/arduino-mhall119/5/hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"
User configuration file is "/home/raj/snap/arduino-mhall119/5/.avrduderc"
User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping

Using Port : /dev/ttyACM0
Using Programmer : arduino
Overriding Baud Rate : 115200
avrdude: ser_open(): can't open device "/dev/ttyACM0": Permission denied

avrdude done. Thank you.

Problem uploading to board. See http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Troubleshooting#upload for suggestions.

This report would have more information with
"Show verbose output during compilation"
option enabled in File -> Preferences.