Problems with 1284P and SD card

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Good Day,

I have a Arduino uno setup only with an SD card through SPI (i.e MISO, MOSI, SCK, SS). This works 100% correctly using a variety of cards.

Now I ran out of pins on my Arduino uno project and I decided to start using the ATmega1284P IC.

So I downloaded the Arduino "board" from JChristensen mighty-1284p. I then installed it into hardware folder.

My setup of the 1284P is on breadboard and includes the IC, 16MHz oscillatord, Vcc, Gnd, RST (pulled high). I communicate with the board using an FTDI board from eBay.

I boot-loaded the 1284P with my Arduino Uno. I am able to upload and run the blink application by adding a LED.

Anyhow, for this test I only have the SD card connected to the 1284P and I select the:
"maniacbug" Mighty 1284P 16MHz using optiboot board.

The example SD code that comes with this board uploads okay however the application fails intermittently. (actually more failure than success).

So If I run the SD->CardInfo sketch and connect my serial monitor and reset the power a few times, I get 9/10 times card initialization failed. but 1 in 10 it will give the card details. same with the other example sketches.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what to check?

2

So it seams a lot better now, no failures anymore.

Instead of powering the breadboard with the FTDI's 5V I am using a USB charger directly to my board.

3

I believe I may have been mistaken,

When comparing the latest SD library 1.0.6 that comes standard with Arduino 1.6.7 I noticed that the files in the mighty SD library were different.

I updated all the mighty SD library files with the new 1.0.6 SD files and now my SD card is much more stable!

The only file I did not copy across directly was Sd2PinMap but instead I did a "merge" of sorts.'

Hope this help someone.