Another one of my nemeses as a Newbie. Could someone please point me in the direction of a half decent (simple) idiots guide or tutorial to install the bootloader onto a standard Nano 3.0 using an R3 Uno as the host device.
I must have tried a dozen online tutorials and follow this instruction guides, none of which I have managed to give me a working nano.
I’m about to start pulling my hair out in frustration
As always any help really appreciated
There are also tutorial videos on Youtube showing the process.
What's missing from the Arduino description is the need to connect a 10uF capacitor between the "programmer" Arduino's Reset pin and ground, with the "+" lead of the cap on Reset. There is some mystery about this, but I have never been able to get this to work without the capacitor. But perhaps it isn't necessary with newer versions of the ISP. I think @ptillisch is the expert on this.
Edit: Can you tell us why you need to burn the bootloader to a Nano?
Note that you will have the choice of the current or the "old bootloader" for the Nano, but many people set the IDE to UNO and burn the UNO bootloader to the Nano. This frees up 1.5KBytes of flash memory for use by the sketch, but does require that you select "UNO" in the IDE when compiling a sketch.
I bought a couple of R3 Nano’s from Amazon. I thought I got a good deal until I found they didn’t have a bootloader mounted.
How did you determine that?
Yes! The OP must give an acceptable answer!
Not from the one in the Arduino documentation.
Can you post a link to what you bought?
Highly unlikely they didn't have a bootloader. But highly likely they had the "Old Bootloader". When you drop down the Tools menu, and select Nano, you also need to set the Processor line just below that, and select 328P (Old Bootloader). If that doesn't work, then something is wrong. But it probably will.
Yes. My memory was that it was missing, but I must have been thinking of some other tutorial. Also, it explains that the cap is needed unless the processor is USB-capable on its own, without a UART adapter.
You need the following item first before proceeding to store Bootloader Program into NANO:
A copy of the Bootloader Program. Do you have it? If not, I can show you how to get it if you have a ROM programmer; else, someone from the from can give you a copy.
The Arduino IDE will already have the bootloader files needed to burn the bootloader.
More likely they are fake.
Yes! Now, I remember in which folder it is. Thank you.
Probably not selecting "old bootloader"
All my Nanos are knockoffs. Only half of them use "old bootloader."
Possible! Well at this point what we have no idea what lead @keithfitch to the conclusion that there was no bootloader or what was tried in order to burn one
Someone (probably me :-( ) should write a host-side program that attempts to "analyze" an arbitrary Arduino board bootloader, and list the specifics. It shouldn't be that difficult, given the Python libraries available these days.