Program atmega2560 with usb-serial converter

Using Arduino IDE 1.x
1

Hi, first of all I'd like to point out this is my first post here and I know absolutely nothing about anything.

Ok, a while ago I bought a cloned atmega2560 from somewhere on ebay, and I cannot program it, the USB doesnt recognise the device (despite me installing about 300 drivers from different posts and tutorials from all over the internet).

So, I bought a cheap USB to serial converter, thinking I could just bypass the whole driver thing and just upload to it directly. The device shows up as USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM4) in device manager, so far so good, right?

Tested the USB converter by jumping the RX/TX and using the arduino serial monitor utilty, and it works as expected (I didnt event have to alter anything).

Next I tried to connect it to the atmega, 5v to Vin, GND to GND, Tx to Rx0, Rx to Tx0, grounded the reset prior to upload. Waited for the 'blink' sketch to say 'Uploading...' and pulled out the reset grounding wire. According to forums and tutorials this should work.

It wont upload, the IDE sits uploading for about 1 minute and then stops with about 7 errors of 'avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout' and and a final 'avrdude: stk500v2_getsync(): timeout communicating with programmer' and 'An error occurred while uploading the sketch'.

Now, for full disclosure, I read somewhere I had to break a solder link on the atmega called 'RESET-EN', so I did that, no difference.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong?

2

Where did you get the USB cable from my mega clone didn't like the one cable I had and this is not the first time a USB cable did not work on a piece of equipment of mine they must have variants of some sort. Try a different cable to rule that out.

3

mrbilky:
Where did you get the USB cable from my mega clone didn't like the one cable I had and this is not the first time a USB cable did not work on a piece of equipment of mine they must have variants of some sort. Try a different cable to rule that out.

I'm not using a cable, I am trying to program the atmega directly from the USB-SERIAL converter (if you mean the cable for the converter, I have it plugged in directly to my USB port).

4

psych:
Rx to Tx1

That should be Rx to Tx0. It's confusing because on the boards with only a single serial port the serial port pins are labeled RX0 and TX1, and that's a single port. In that case the numbers after RX/TX are the Arduino digital pin number. But on the Mega, which has 4 serial ports the number after the RX/TX indicates which serial port. So RX0/TX0 is Serial, RX1/TX1 is Serial1, etc. Serial is the one used for uploads.

5

My mistake , I actually meant RX0 and TX0 on the board, I'll edit my post.