SparkFun Forums

[Trisorion]

I have encountered two issues and attempted a number of fixes. I will include a lot of links here, but you don't need to read to them to understand my problem.

I am using Sparkfun's pocket AVR programmer https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9825 with Pololu's Baby Orangutan Board http://www.pololu.com/product/1220 which uses the ATmega328P. I am running on a 64 bit windows 7 machine. I installed the drivers with the method described here https://forum.sparkfun.com/viewtopic.ph ... er#p130720. The drivers seemed to install fine. The device appears under "libusb-win32 devices" --> "USBtiny" in my device manager. The following few steps were conducted with the programmer connected to my computer, but the programmer was not plugged into the Baby Orangutan board. The Power LED and D- were a solid blue, the Stat1 was a solid red and everything else was off.

I tried to follow this guide http://www.pololu.com/docs/0J51/3.2 to use Atmel Studio version 6. That guide is technically for a different AVR programmer (one sold by pololu) so I am not sure if the following is an error or to be expected. When I navigate to the "Tools"-->"Add Target..." there is nothing populated in the "select serial port field". I am not sure if this means I did something wrong, or this is to be expected because I am using sparkfun's programmer rather than pololu's. In any case I decided to try AVRdude rather than Atmel Studio as that is what sparkfun suggests.

I downloaded WinAVR and ran the following command, with nothing plugged into the programmer:

Code: Select all

avrdude -p m328p -c usbtiny

It returned:

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avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

This page http://www.instructables.com/id/Start-u ... -with-the/ says that this means my computer is communicating with the programmer correctly but that the target could not be found (because it was not plugged in).

I tried plugging in the Baby Orangutan with the programmer switch selecting "Power Target'. All LEDs on the programmer immediately turned off and it disconnected from my computer. I tried again with the switch turned to "No Power" and the programmer stayed on. I then tried powering the Baby Orangutan externally while leaving the switch set to "No Power". Unfortunately, Atmel Studio 6 still showed no serial ports and avrdude returned the same result (rc=-1).

I have checked the Baby Orangutan board, everything seems soldered securely with no shorts. Unfortunately there are no status LEDs for me to be sure it is working.

TL;DR
Issue 1) I cant get Atmel Studio 6 to recognize a serial connection with the programmer. I cant get AVRdude to work but I think that might be because of issue #2.
Issue 2) When I try to supply power to the Baby Orangutan with the programmer, the programmer turns itself off.

Any advice?
Is the programmer broken or is the baby orangutan?
Has anyone else had a similar experience?

[Trisorion]

I was able to fix the powering off issue (I had the ISP header in backwards). However AVRdude still returns the same error.

[jremington]

I ALWAYS power the Orangutan separately when programming, but I use Pololu programmers, which do not offer the option of powering it. I note on the SFE product page that there were issues with the "power target" switch being incorrectly wired.