Pro Mini 3.3V FTDI Problem

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Troubleshooting
1

Hello,

I've gone through many forums looking for what I could be doing wrong here. Here's a brief description of the problem I have and below will be specs as to what I'm using and how I encountered the error.

  • I am trying to load a program onto the Arduino Pro Mini 3.3V found here: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardProMini using an FTDI Cable.
    Currently, with the cable plugged in, there is a red LED in the center which stays on (Assuming it's power). When I tell the software to load the program, a green LED on pin 10 flashes on at increasing intervals then stops. Finally an error on the software is produced:
avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00 avrdude:
stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51

So far here are the settings I'm using:
OS: Windows 7: 64 Bit
Driver for FTDI Cable: arduino-0021\drivers\FTDI USB Drivers
Port: COM 3 (As found through control panel)
Board: Arduino Pro or Pro Mini (3.3V, 8MHz) w/ ATmega 328
Baud Rate: 9600 bps, Data bits 8, Parity: None, Stop bits 1.

Errors I've made thus far: Flashed a 5v Vcc wire to the Tx pin.
(i.e. accidentally plugged in the FTDI cable backwards. thought GRN looked like GND and assumed black wire = ground.)

So my question is, 'what can I do?' and, 'is my board fried?'

Edit: An additional mistake was not grounding myself before touching the board. Even though I was careful, it was a stupid mistake to not touch ground before touching something so delicate.

2

Do you have the right board type & com port selected under Tools?
Download is usually at 57600, don't think you have to select a datarate.

The increasing flashing rate indicates board that has factory-fresh program in it.

Hard to say if the other stuff you did damaged it or not.

3

CrossRoads,

Thank you, yes I do have the correct board type & COM port selected under Tools. I went ahead and changed the baud rate to 57600 bps but there was no change to the results.

4

If you had the FTDI adapter on backwards, then you would have applied VCC to the Rx in, and ground to the TX out pin.
With the promini's VCC connected to an FTDI adapter input pin, its hard to say if this might have exceeded the limitations of the pin being no higher than 0.5V above VCC.

Do you have another PC or different com port you can try?