So I just purchased a couple boards to start a couple projects on. So as per usual, I blew a couple chips and needed replacements. My problem is that the new ATMEGA 328p chips don't seem to be working. could anyone offer me some guidance? Any experience with this issue?
You need to use a programmer to burn the bootloader on new chips before you will be able to upload over USB as usual. You can use an Arduino with the Arduino ISP sketch on it as a programmer or you can buy a real programmer like the USBasp.
I am still kind of new to this. Would you be able to tell me what exactly I will need to purchase to do this? Any software I need to download?
If you have a working Arduino you can use it as a programmer by following this tutorial: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoISP. If you're using any recent version of the Arduino IDE you can skip step 2. Using the Arduino as ISP is a good option to allow you to burn bootloaders with what you have on hand but it sounds like you will be repeating this process from time to time so I'd recommend you to buy a USBasp off ebay like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/271489740923. This is much easier to connect to your Arduino, is faster, and can be made to work with the Arduino Mega. To use any normal programmer to burn a bootloader you would:
- Plug the programmer into the ISP header on your Arduino.
- Plug the programmer into the USB port on your computer
- Select the correct programmer type from the Tools > Programmer menu.
- Select the correct board for the Arduino you're programming from the Tools > Board menu
- Tools > Burn Bootloader - wait until it completes successfully
- Unplug the programmer from the USB
- Unplug the programmer from the Arduino
After doing those steps the bootloader has been burned to your new chip and you can do serial uploads via USB as usual.
Thanks so much! You have been very helpful!
pert:
If you have a working Arduino you can use it as a programmer by following this tutorial: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoISP. If you're using any recent version of the Arduino IDE you can skip step 2. Using the Arduino as ISP is a good option to allow you to burn bootloaders with what you have on hand but it sounds like you will be repeating this process from time to time so I'd recommend you to buy a USBasp off ebay like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/271489740923. This is much easier to connect to your Arduino, is faster, and can be made to work with the Arduino Mega. To use any normal programmer to burn a bootloader you would:
- Plug the programmer into the ISP header on your Arduino.
- Plug the programmer into the USB port on your computer
- Select the correct programmer type from the Tools > Programmer menu.
- Select the correct board for the Arduino you're programming from the Tools > Board menu
- Tools > Burn Bootloader - wait until it completes successfully
- Unplug the programmer from the USB
- Unplug the programmer from the Arduino
After doing those steps the bootloader has been burned to your new chip and you can do serial uploads via USB as usual.
So after getting all the equipment needed and trying these steps, I keep getting:
"avrdude: error: could not find USB device with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc vendor='www.fischl.de' product='USBasp'"
Any advice here? I have browsed everywhere online to try and figure it out. Nothing is working.
Shameless self bump
So I actually got it to work. What I had to do was update the drivers for the USBasb.
The first problem i encountered here was that the computer by default does not want you to change drivers manually so I had to disable this on reboot. I then updated the drivers to the libusb 0.1.12.1 version and the bootloader was able to be placed onto the chip and is now taking my code.
The next problem I am having seems to be that some of my boards themselves may be defective, but that is a whole different issue.
Hope this can help someone else, perhaps.