How many times can a Arduino board be uploaded with new code ?

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1

Hello,

I am a new user of Arduino IDE, I am testing writing data to and reading data from registers. I practiced approximately for two days only and uploaded code when some modifications were made on the code, but total number of upload was less than 50 times. However, the board can not be uploaded any more, it gave three kinds of error messages at different times as below

  1. The port does not exist, or the board is not connected.
  2. timeout.
  3. An error occurred.

In realty, the port was working as the previously uploaded code is still running, which can be observed in the serial monitor.

I like to know how many times a board can be uploaded with new code.

or is there any other thing going wrong?

Thanks,
Gu

2

Hi @edmuser. The number of write cycles the flash memory is rated for depends on which board you're using. I'll give you an example though: the microcontrollers used on the Uno, Mega, classic Nano, and Leonardo are rated for 10000 write cycles. This means that you are guaranteed to be able to do 10000 uploads without any problems. Probably you would find that you could do significantly more than that before actually encountering any problems. But even if you only get the 10000, I think you will surely have gotten your money's worth out of the board by then and not feel so bad if you need to buy a replacement after so much fun.

So it's very likely that the problem you are having has nothing to do with the number of uploads.

Please tell us which board you are using.

3

"I like to know how many times a board can be uploaded with new code."

Write/Erase Cycles: 10,000 Flash

Does the Loopback test work?

  • Reset to Gnd
  • D0 connected to D1

Type in the serial monitor, it should echo back. If not: bad USB cable; USB chip on the board died; something happened to USB port on the PC.
Do you have another device you can check the cable with?
Does the port show up in Device Manager with a ! next to it?

4

Loopback test is only relevant for specific boards.

5

Hi

It is Sparkfun Redboard Qwiic, which is based on Arduino and compatible with IDE.
I am not clear about your description below.

Does the Loopback test work?

  • Reset to Gnd
  • D0 connected to D1

I checked to send text from serial monitor, nothing showed up on the monitor, but I did observe a quick led blink on the board each time I typed in a letter or a word, and the previously loaded program can still run, showing data on the monitor, suggesting the port and cable are ok.

attached is a pin layout of the board.

The reason I selected this board, because my sensor board need 3.3 V, the board can work on 3.3 or 5 V. Arduino boards use 5V.

Thanks,
Gu

Redboardv1.pdf (275 KB)

6

That is one of the boards for which the loopback test is relevant and a valuable troubleshooting technique.

Of course, if you aren't getting a serial port from the board, then you can't do a loopback test.

7

The port is there, just does not work for uploading
.
The program that was uploaded previously includes reading data from all the registers and writing data to some registers for configuration. I checked the result, all looks good, meaning the Redboard and sensor board can still communicate properly and displays result on the serial monitor, this shows the port and cable are working. but just does not work for uploading.

I also tried to upload the same code to a Seeeduino Xiao via the same port, upload was smooth.

The Redboard is based on Arduino Uno, Sparkfun added 3.3 V support.

8

Have you tried restarting your computer?

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