Did I just destroy my arduino?

Been playing around with my auto coffee roaster circuit, fitted on a protoshield, untill the arduino didn't seem to react anymore. I disconnect everything except the usb and tried to upload the blink sketch. I didn't change any settings. Led 13 keeps on burning and the processorchip is getting quite warm, uploading however results in the following message:

Binary sketch size: 976 bytes (of a 30720 byte maximum)

avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00
avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51

Yep that sounds fried. So what did you do wrong, only you can tell. More details of your hardware setup would help

Wow, that goes quickly. I thought the arduino was well protected against this.

Can't really tell what went wrong, because the construction consists of several parts, not all well connected. I was working on the isolation of the protoshield from the arduino, as the ICSP touch some components. This could have been the cause.

So now I just need to order a new atmega328 chip en replace the old one?!

Thanks for the advice

Wow, that goes quickly. I thought the arduino was well protected against this.

Nope, the I/O pins come right out to the connectors. If you short an I/O pin to GND while driving high, short one to another, etc. it's quite possible to destroy it.

Seeing this kind of thing happen over and over again with microcontroller boards (momentary mistake-->wasted money) is why we made the Gator so well protected: short circuits, overvoltage, negative voltage, etc. are all protected.

One of the most dangerous pins is VCC3O, the +3.3V output pin (and the pins on connector X3). That is connected right to the USB driver chip so if you short that or drive it with 5V by mistake, you stand a good chance of destroying that chip, and it is NOT easy to remove and replace as it is an SMT component with 0.65mm pin spacing.

Sorry for blathering so long...circuit protection is a bit of a passion :slight_smile:

Yeah, I burned 2 arduinos out already. the first one was a momentry accidental touch to another wire, and the second was because i connected the hardware and when i went to upload the sketch, the arduino loaded the previous code and some pins that were suppose to be low wentt high andd....

you get the idea.

Im just going to see if i can solder in some small SMT resistors before the connectors.

I would like to design my own Arduino board, dare i say I think i could design it a little better :slight_smile:

Ok, little while ago but I ordered three new ATMEL ATMEGA328P-PU chips to replace the chip I apparently burned.
I am ill experienced in this and cannot get it to work, so perhaps anyone can give some advice.

I installed one of the chips (right direction) and tried to upload a sketch, which obviously didn't work. So I needed to upload a bootloader. I decided to make a parallel programmer (http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/ParallelProgrammer), which wasn't too much of a problem. As I didnt had 470Ohm resistors, I first used two 1KOhm, but these didn't work and I replaced them with some new 470Ohm's.

As my laptop doesn't have a parallel port, I use an older pc that runs xp. I installed the giveio file (http://web.mit.edu/6.115/www/miscfiles/giveio.zip), and run Arduino 16, selected Arduino Duemilanova with ATmega328 and then selected Burn Bootloader with Parallel programmer.
That didn't work, so I installed the registry patch (http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/Bootloader), but failed again.

A screencopy of Arduino 16 shows the following:

Any advice on next steps to take? I haven't tried the other chips yet, dont want to kill all three in once by a bad move.

Here is the link to the screendump:
http://picasaweb.google.nl/nestjekiki/Arduino#5362425691570006322

My advice to anyone needing to replace an AVR on their Arduino is to obtain on from the several vendors that sell them with the bootloader code already installed. Unless you already have a proven hardware programmer and have experience uploading the bootloader, the few cents extra for getting a plug and play processor chip is a real time saver. Here is just one listing from one vendor, there are several others:

Also any suspecting chip damage on their Arduino board should also check out the FTDI USB converter chip by itself before just buying a AVR processor chip. To test out the USB function, just unplug the processor chip and then wire pin 0 to pin 1. Then plug in the USB cable to the PC. The PC should recognize the USB connection and then you can use either a standalone terminal like hypeterminal or even the serial monitor on the Arduino IDE. As you type characters from the PC keyboard you should see the characters echoed back to the terminal receive window. If this doesn't work then there is likely further damage on your Arduino board then just the processor chip.

Lefty

Hello Lefty,

Thanks for your reply.

If I knew before that uploading the bootloader would have been such a hassle, I would have ordered the ones you suggest. However, the whole procedure didn't sound to complicated, so I thought I give it a try.

But now, I have 3 new chips but still no working arduino. Any suggestion on anything that might be wrong? I did check out the USB converter chip as you suggested, which seems to be working fine.

Hi,

I had really good results using this method of bootloader burning:

http://www.geocities.jp/arduino_diecimila/bootloader/index_en.html

Of course I was hesitating soldering headers to the x3 solderpads, but after it was done everything worked without problems (both with an ATMega 168 and an 88).

Hope that helps you get the unused chips working.

Otacon2k

EDIT: of course the FTDI-chip has to be working for this, so I hope it didn't die with your Arduino...

Here is a way to do it:

Get the ladyada kit... and never worry again about loading, updating or repairing the bootloader.

Otacon2k, that sounds like a nice approach.
Only removing these 4 tin patches and placing headers in the holes sounds a bit tricky. Any suggestion how to do that?

Only removing these 4 tin patches and placing headers in the holes sounds a bit tricky. Any suggestion how to do that?

Yep... just grab your soldering iron and a bit of desoldering wick, remove the solder and place a header into the holes. It's not really hard to do, mainly a mental thing of not wanting to break something.

Bought a preprogrammed chip (a neighbour happens to sell them, so I dont need to order them from across the Atlantic :slight_smile: and it all works fine again!

Still have 3 virgin chips laying around now, might try the suggestion of Otacon2k.

Thanks for the help

Otacon2k, great tip, it worked perfectly
Thanks

I used Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting. without any problem...

no soldering, breadboard & jumper wire, a few leds (for op. status), a couple of bypass caps, one arduino and a bunch of blank chips.