SparkFun Forums

[bcrimmins]

I just received a PGM-11801, Tiny AVR Programmer. Plugged in an attiny85, stuck it into a USB port, configured the driver/board/etc. Uploaded a sketch with an LED blink on pin 0. Voila! It worked. Then I started building the rest of the 9v circuit to power a solenoid and I accidentally plugged ~9v+ into the vin pin of the AVR while it was still on the programmer. Then... a teenie tiny puff of smoke and a really fast disconnect of the power. Now when I plug in the programmer to USB and try to upload a sketch, Arduino IDE gives me this error: "avrdude: Error: Could not find USBtiny device (0x1781/0xc9f)"

Feels like I bricked the programmer. But could it be something else?

Thanks!

[darrellg]

Then... a teenie tiny puff of smoke and a really fast disconnect of the power.
[...]
Feels like I bricked the programmer. But could it be something else?

Smoke is bad. Since there is really only one component on that board along with a handful of passives, it is certainly dead. Once the magic smoke has escaped, there is no way to put it back in.

[bcrimmins]

Once the magic smoke has escaped, there is no way to put it back in.

Thanks, darrellg. I was afraid of that. Am I wrong for thinking that voltage protection on Vin would be a useful feature for that product? Well, good for users... maybe not as good for SparkFun's revenue model -- I bet I'm not the only one who put 9 volts into a 5 volt hole.

[darrellg]

It's a lot cheaper to make sure you don't overvolt your device. There's only so much a manufacturer can do to protect people from making mistakes. It would not be Sparkfun that would bear the cost. It would be included in the price and you would pay for it.

[bcrimmins]

Yes, I agree.

As an update, I have since discovered that a small capacitor on the circuit that the AVR programmer was driving was burnt out as well and that the voltage going into the programmer was closer to about 7v. The AVR was laying on top of the breadboard next to the capacitor and so I now think that the whiff of smoke might have come from the capacitor. I wasn't looking directly at the circuit when it fried and just saw the smoke out of my peripheral vision... and just assumed the worst, i.e., that it was the programmer that burnt. Still, 7v is more than 5v. I'm going to do some digging to see if I can figure out more precisely why the programmer isn't working. Thanks for your insights.

[jremington]

Every one of us has done something like that, more than once.
Chalk it up to learning, and buy another couple of boards.

[bcrimmins]

Verily, tis so.