Can someone help me get my USBtiny ISP working?

[galannthegreat]

I am having a vugger of a time trying to get my USBtiny ISP to even be recognized by AVR Studio 4. I've followed the directions that ladyada set out, but to no avail. Is there a simple method in getting this thing to work with AVR Studio?

[chelmi]

I don't know about avrstudio, but mine works like a charm with avrdude.
Maybe you could try it with avrdude to see if it's a hardware issue or not.
And you will get better support on the adafruit forum http://forums.adafruit.com/

[galannthegreat]

Thanks for the suggestion chelmi. I'll probably get AVRdude and a cheat sheet to with.

[galannthegreat]

So... I've got AVRdude and I have an idea on how it works, but how do I burn the code onto the chip? What command needs to be entered to do so? How do I specify where the file is located?

[chelmi]

Did you look around before asking?

The actual manual of the USBtinyISP has a section about AVRdude, sparkfun has a tutorial about using avrdure and there is hundreds of other places where this is explained...

http://www.ladyada.net/make/usbtinyisp/avrdude.html

you're welcome

Chelmi.

[galannthegreat]

Thanks, but I do have all that working but the only problem I have is it just says "intialization failed rc=-1".

I think it may have something to do with the fact that it says that the device signature is invalid. Here is what it spits out when I have the programmer and the chip connected:

Code: [Select]

avrdude -c usbtiny -p m8 -U flash:w:Photovore_v1.hex:i -F

avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions
avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes! Invalid device signature.
avrdude: Expected signature for ATMEGA8 is 1E 93 07
avrdude: NOTE: FLASH memory has been specified, an erase cycle will be performed

I know that the programmer is connecting because when I hit enter after the command the red LED blinks, and when there is no programmer it notices that nothing is connected. What could be going wrong? (See being that you have this programmer working) What did you do to make it work?

[chelmi]

http://forums.adafruit.com/viewforum.php?f=20

[galannthegreat]

Thanks chelmi... I actually solved my problem, it was kind of in the wiring... lets just say something was backwards, thanks for your interest in helping me.

[chelmi]

no problem. According to ladyada the number one cause of problem with programmers is wiring

Chelmi.

[galannthegreat]

Yep, 99% apparently... ie. 100% operator error lol.