MightyOhm » Arduino

The Amp Hour #43

Jeff — Tue, 17 May 2011 13:58:04 +0000

The Amp Hour #43 — Audacious Arduino Arguments

Our first four-way podcast! Listen to me, Chris, Dave, and Jeremy chat about Arduino, high altitude balloons, hackerspaces in universities, the Google ADK, and the Maker Faire Bay Area.

Kudos to Skype for enabling us to actually pull this off!

HV Rescue Shield now works with the Arduino Mega

Jeff — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:38:38 +0000

Thanks to John, of the ATX Hackerspace, who loaned me his Arduino for testing, the HV Rescue Shield now works with the Arduino Mega.

I had to create new byte read/write functions for digital lines 0-7 because they are implemented very “differently” (and I don’t mean that in a good way) in the hardware for the Mega. If you’re interested in how I did this, check out the new version 2.12 Arduino sketch and the new mega_data_read and mega_data_write functions.

To use the HV Rescue Shield with the Arduino, first download the revised sketch here. Set the MEGA #define to 1 and compile/upload the sketch to your board. Make sure you have the Arduino Mega selected in the Arduino Board menu, or the sketch won’t compile.

The Mega has more pin headers than the Rescue Shield, so be sure to install the shield all the way to the left, as shown here:

If you experience any problems with the HV Rescue Shield and the Arduino Mega, please report them in the support forum.

New Product: HV Rescue Shield 2.0

Jeff — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:03:28 +0000

The HV Rescue Shield 2.0 is a high voltage parallel mode fuse programmer for Atmel AVR microcontrollers.

It currently supports a wide variety of AVR chips, including the 28-pin ATmega48/88/168/328 series, the 20-pin ATtiny2313, and many 8-pin ATtiny devices (such as the ATtiny25/45/85 and ATtiny13A). A list of supported devices is in progress, but the Rescue Shield supports many more devices than those listed on the wiki.

The HV Rescue Shield 2.0 is in stock and ready to ship today! Scroll down to place an order.

New in release 2.0:

Support for 8-pin ATtiny devices that use High Voltage Serial Programming (HVSP) mode!
Mode selection at startup so you don’t have to recompile the Arduino sketch to change parts.
More reliable HFUSE burning on all HVPP targets.
Numerous minor bug fixes and speed improvements to the code.
Reduced price, kit is now only $19.95 (was $24.95). This means the kit is lower cost, but with more supported parts!

Requirements:

A working Arduino (tested with Arduino Uno, Duemilanove and Arduino NG)
A computer with USB and the Arduino IDE installed (tested with Arduino 0021)
A soldering iron and basic electronics assembly skills

What you get:

A high quality printed circuit board with the DC-DC converter preassembled, as shown below.
All other components needed to build the kit
An Arduino sketch, assembly instructions, Eagle schematics and layout files.

Here is a snapshot of the components included with the kit.

How to Order:

Visit the HV Rescue Shield 2.x product page to place an order.

HV Rescue Shield 2.0 update

Jeff — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:56:40 +0000

Version 2.0 of the HV Rescue Shield (I decided to drop the ‘AVR’ from the name) will add support for high voltage serial programming (HVSP) and 8-pin parts like the ATtiny13A.

Boards are due back next week, components are on order, but there is still code to write.

Back to work!

Arduino Oops!

Jeff — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 22:50:20 +0000

That’s a closeup of resistor R1 on my new Arduino Uno board. See how the left terminal isn’t touching the solder bump on the land pad? That’s not good.

Surprisingly, my Arduino seems to work just fine with one side of the resistor open. Arduino, don’t let the cost reduction guys see this one, or they’ll eliminate it in the next rev!

More photos of the tombstoned resistor on my Arduino Uno.

The Arduino team has responded to other claims of manufacturing defects (most of which seem fairly trivial) in their blog post “One bad Arduino doesn’t spoil the barrel“. I have already contacted my reseller and will do everything possible to help Arduino improve their manufacturing process and quality control.

AVR HV Rescue Shield works with Arduino Uno

Jeff — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 22:42:54 +0000

I’m happy to report that the AVR HV Rescue Shield has been tested and works with the new Arduino Uno.

This isn’t too much of a surprise, but it’s always good to check that seemingly innocent changes to a hardware platform don’t cause unexpected problems in existing applications. (That is the voice of experience talking, can you tell?)

AVR HV Rescue Shield Code Update 1.2

Jeff — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:03:24 +0000

Version 1.2 of the Arduino sketch that powers the AVR HV Rescue Shield is now available for download.

The revised sketch now displays the target AVR’s existing fuse settings before asking you for new ones.

I also cleaned up and reworked the code in a couple places, but these changes shouldn’t affect the existing functionality.

If you have any issues or questions about the new code, post them in the support forum or contact me directly.

Sale: 20% off AVR HV Rescue Shield

Jeff — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:49:39 +0000

Now through July 9th, order an AVR HV Rescue Shield kit and get 20% off!

AVR HV Rescue Shield Kit – $19.95

Minor updates to the AVR HV Rescue Shield

Jeff — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:26:10 +0000

This week there have been a couple minor updates to the AVR HV Rescue Shield:

I just uploaded version 1.1 of the Arduino sketch, which fixes an issue with garbage being printed in the serial monitor between burn cycles. I also made some minor changes to try to reduce the likelihood of getting serial gibberish upon opening the monitor window, although I’m not 100% sure what is causing this. The sketch was compiled and tested with Arduino 0017.
I have verified that the shield works with the Atmel ATmega328P AVR microcontroller.

AVR HV Rescue Shield kits back in stock, new lower pricing!

Jeff — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:21:15 +0000

Good news! The AVR HV Rescue Shield kits are back in stock, with new, lower pricing!

The full kit, which has been reduced to $19, includes a professionally made PCB with preassembled DC-DC converter and all the parts you need to build the AVR HV Rescue Shield.

The PCB-only option is still available, which includes one unassembled PCB (DC-DC converter is not included). Pricing on the PCBs has been reduced to $6.

Head over to the AVR HV Rescue Shield page to place an order!

(Note that prices do not include shipping or taxes, if applicable.)

kuangeleven’s WL-520gU based Wi-Fi Radio & LCD Display

Jeff — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:23:09 +0000

kuangeleven is working on a WL-520gU based Wi-Fi Radio based on my original project. Unlike my version, he’s using an Arduino Mini instead of an ATmega to control the user interface.

Asus wl-520gu Wi-Fi Radio & LCD Display

Originally uploaded by kuangeleven

Arduino MEGA Spy Shots on Hack a Day

Jeff — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:24:49 +0000

Hackday posted the first image of the new Arduino MEGA platform, shown above. According to Eliot, the MEGA features “12 PWM connections, 36 Digital I/O, and 16 analog inputs… 4 hardware UARTs and an I2C bus as well.”

Arduino MEGA – Hack a Day.

Introducing the AVR HV Rescue Shield

Jeff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:52:09 +0000

This all started last year, when I was playing with an ATmega168 microcontroller and did something silly. I programmed the RSTDISBL fuse bit, which effectively makes it impossible to reflash the chip using an ordinary (serial) programmer.

Instead of giving up and throwing out the “dead” chip, I decided to try to revive it using an obscure high voltage parallel programming mode that isn’t supported by most AVR programmers. Armed with my Arduino and the ATmega168 datasheet, I quickly designed and constructed a programmer using parts I already had on my workbench.

A few hours later, I tested my new programmer and it worked! I revived my “dead” AVR by using spare parts and a few lines of Arduino code. That week I published the schematics and Arduino sketch to the site and called it my Arduino-based AVR High Voltage Programmer.

The response was overwhelming. Since I first posted the design, many people have built their own and used it to fix their “dead” AVR microcontrollers by restoring the fuse bits to sane values. I even received several requests for a PCB and/or kit based on the design, which got me thinking…

Today I’m proud to introduce:

The AVR HV Rescue Shield

The AVR HV Rescue Shield is a high voltage parallel mode fuse programmer for Atmel AVR microcontrollers.

It currently supports the ATmega48/88/168/328 series and the ATtiny2313. The Rescue Shield does everything my original AVR High Voltage Programmer does, and a lot more. I think the new features make this a really useful tool for anyone working with AVR microcontrollers.

New features include:

Custom 2-layer PCB with silkscreen and soldermask. No more hacking and modifying perfboards to fit Arduino’s nonstandard pin spacing!
Onboard 12V DC-DC boost converter eliminates the need for an external 12V power supply
Support for two of the most common families of AVR microcontrollers, the ATmega48/88/168 and ATtiny2313
Support for programming the extended fuse (EFUSE) byte.
A new interactive mode, where desired fuses can be entered using the Arduino’s serial port.
Separate Ready and Burn indicators
Protection resistors on every single data, control, and supply line to the target AVR, meaning that your Arduino and AVR should survive any mishaps during programming, including inserting the AVR backwards or off by 1 pin.

I spent considerable time testing each new feature and documenting the Arduino sketch. I hope that you’ll find that the finished product was worth the wait!

Ordering instructions:

To purchase bare PCBs and kits, head over to the AVR HV Rescue Shield product page.

AVR HV Rescue Shield PCBs are in, kits available soon.

Jeff — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:14:13 +0000

Big news – the AVR HV Rescue Shield PCBs arrived yesterday! I’m currently testing them and will post information about kits for sale as soon as I verify that everything is working properly.

This is actually the second spin of the PCB but the first to bear the ‘Rescue Shield’ name. The first spin was a one-off prototype to check a couple things out, mostly related to the 5V to 12V step up converter. That design allowed me to fix a couple bugs before doing a production run with the improved design, show below.

So far all I can say is that the step up converter works perfectly. (Yipee!)

More details to come!

100th post! Tony’s Wifi Radio Sketchup Model, Dorkbot Tonight

Jeff — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:55:01 +0000

100 Posts!

This is my 100th post to the blog.

When I started blogging in July of last year I wasn’t sure what I would post about or where all of this would go. Eight months later, the blog has exceeded my expectations in many (and many unexpected) ways. The major driving force behind this blog has always been my desire to share my projects and my passion for electronics with the world, in addition to (hopefully) inspiring some other people to do cool things with electronics as well.

My favorite post? Definitely the Arduino-based AVR High Voltage Programmer. I never expected such a simple circuit to help so many people. There has been so much ongoing interest in this project that I am putting together an Arduino shield kit based on the original design. The kit features a slick double-sided PCB and an integrated 5 to 12V step up converter so you don’t need an external 12V supply to use the programmer. More details very soon!

Tony’s Wifi Radio Sketchup Model

Tony created this awesome Google Sketchup model of an enclosure for my Wifi Radio project. After I made a very crude first draft, Tony took my design and turned it into something that is sort of modern, sort of retro. Perfect!

Dorkbot Tonight

In other news, there is a Dorkbot SF meeting tonight at Parisoma at 7:30PM. Arrive early to get a seat! Details at dorkbot-sf.