Hey guys, I've been trying to program my MCU with my USBTinyISP programmer, and I think I may have broken the programmer. See the programmer can provide 5 V to the chip when a jumper is connected, or you can power the chip yourself. So I decided to power the chip myself with my 5 V switching regulator. However, I accidentally kept the VCC and GND connected through the programmer's ribbon cable. Those two would usually be connected to the chip to power and ground it. Basically the GND was connected to the ground of my outside powersource, and the VCC (from the programmer) was connected to the 5 V going to my MCU. I didn't have the jumper connected though, so it shouldn't have provided power. I heard something crack, and smelt the smelly smoke. However, the MCU still works. I had an old program that blinked an LED on it and whenever I disconnect the programmer, the LED still blinks. The programmer still gets recognized by the computer, however I'm getting an error which means that the programmer isn't talking to the chip at all. I looked at the programmer itself and I didn't see anything broken or blackened, and I can't seem to find what was smoking. I've double, and triple checked my wiring, yet it still won't work. Basically I've followed this thread...
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=1045.0 and I've wired accordingly (except the VCC and GND pins, as I'm powering externally). I have the chip powered by 1 5V wire going to the VCC, and two GND wires, one on each side (I'm too lazy to look up pin numbers, but I know there is one VCC and two GND). Then I have the four remaining wires from the programmer hooked up to MISO, SCK, MOSI, and RESET. I don't know what's going on.
I've even tried to power the chip using the programmer. Then the USB port on my computer had a power surge and wouldn't work. I remember this happening last time too, before I think I broke it, so that didn't bother me that much.
Anyone have any ideas?
