Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Software => Software => Topic started by: alex643 on November 14, 2008, 08:17:23 PM

Title: Need help with AVR ISP MKII
Post by: alex643 on November 14, 2008, 08:17:23 PM
Hey, I built the $50 dollar robot controller and also got the more expensive programmer and used AVR studio for the programming. Now when I go to try and connect to the bot it continuously says that connection was failed. I am almost positive I wired everything up right but it doesn't seem to want to work. Any help is appreciated!
Title: Re: Need help with AVR ISP MKII
Post by: Webbot on November 14, 2008, 08:41:04 PM
Unplug your mcu.

Use a meter to check open/closed circuits between each ISP header pin and the mcu pin they are meant to go to.
Check for short circuits between any pairs of pins on the ISP.
I'll bet its one of the above issues  ;)

If there is no problem here then you may have connected the ISP the wrong way around.
Re-plug your mcu

If you still have problems then what flashing lights do you have on the ISP with the mcu power off, and the power connected?

PS Trust you've already searched the forum as there are loads of posts about this topic  ::)

Title: Re: Need help with AVR ISP MKII
Post by: HDL_CinC_Dragon on November 14, 2008, 09:49:17 PM
Great thread for this issue:
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=1045.0

I too was 100% positive I had hooked up the pins correctly. I checked the connections at least a half dozen times but still thought they were hooked up right. Then the 7th time I figured out that I had them reversed >_<

be infinitely careful when wiring up the pins so that they go in the right spots!
Title: Re: Need help with AVR ISP MKII
Post by: alex643 on November 15, 2008, 01:36:50 PM
Okay, well yesterday when I was trying to get it to work the ISP had a solid green status LED. Now me being an idiot I thought, hey maybe I put the chip in backwards because I checked the IC sockets and they were perfect, now whenever I plug in the ISP with the chip in eather way it is a blinking orange LED. I'm guessing I did something wrong and when i searched the website I could not find anything relevant on it. I'm guessing a fried the chip? if that's the case, I guess I will just have to buy another one and learn from my mistake. Any additional help will be appreciated, thanks for everything so far!
Title: Re: Need help with AVR ISP MKII
Post by: Trumpkin on November 15, 2008, 02:42:25 PM
If you put the chip in backwards, you fried the chip.
Title: Re: Need help with AVR ISP MKII
Post by: alex643 on November 15, 2008, 04:21:37 PM
eh, I figured, oh well, I wanted to order some more stuff from digi-key anyway, might as well throw 2 or 3 more chips in there encase I fuck up again. heh, got to learn somehow.
Title: Re: Need help with AVR ISP MKII
Post by: Metal Slug 2 on January 27, 2009, 12:33:48 AM
hey man

     just tonight i finally got my robot to work (i finished my exams just this morning, so i didn't have time before).  i had the exact same problem you did.  i would plug my AVR ISP MKII programmer into a usb port, then plug it into my robot, then turn my robot on.  i also got a green light (two actually - one for the general 'power' symbol of the programmer, the other showed up when i plugged the robot in).  when i tried to download the .hex file for 'zeroing' my servos, it wouldn't work!

     The problem was two things.  First of all, i had accidentally connected pins 3 and 4 (the pins labeled under MOSI and SCK, or the two middle pins) when i had soldered the robot together.  And the second, which might be your problem: the ISP frequency was to low when i tried to program.  After searching an hour on how to fix this problem i found where to fix it.  When you go to program the robot, hit the little black chip shaped button named 'AVR'.  go to:  Main>settings. After you enter this box you can change the frequency.  Change this to anything above 5 kHz, but below 1/4th of your robots operating frequencies...(i think the atmega8 usually runs at 1MHz but can run at 8MHz if you do something to it). Anyways, a list of common frequencies will be shown, i chose 6.478 kHz.  Once you choose your frequency hit 'write', (i hit 'read' after also, not sure what that did).  After i fixed these two problems, the program finally downloaded.