Nanode board power/upload help

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hello. A newbie question about getting started with powering up and uploading a program.

I've got a board from http://nanode.eu and I need some advice after I managed to melt the FTDI cable this morning.

Initially I thought I could power it and program it just using the FTDI cable. I couldn't get anything to upload though (having checked I was using the right driver, board and COM port) and wondered if it might be a power problem as neither of the LEDs were on.

I tried plugging in a USB cable. The LEDs came on. Then I plugged in the FTDI cable as well. I still couldn't get anything to upload and then I realised that the USB end at the computer had got so hot it had started to melt!

So, any help with a basic understanding of how to get started properly would be much appreciated.

Should the board receive enough power to program it when only plugged into the FTDI cable? Does having this and a USB cable plugged in at the same time cause some form of overload that resulted in it over heating?

Pic of board here: http://no2self.net/wp-content/docs/nanode.JPG

(albeit the wrong way up, sorry)

Thanks

Rob

2

Looking at the schematics, the board should run fine just from the FTDI cable alone.

It doesn't look like there's any form of power isolation between the FTDI input and the USB connector. Because of this, powering from both the FTDI and the USB at once could be a Very Bad Idea™ from the perspective of your USB.

If the FTDI is putting out a higher voltage than the USB (even just a few mV) it will be forcing power into the USB from the Nanode end. USB doesn't like that.