Today, it seems to be working.  I can talk to the AVRISP with avrdude and program devices.  Cool!

I’m not sure what I changed.  I’m using Virtualbox 3.2.10 r66523, running on a Windows 7 64-bit host.  The VM/client OS is Ubuntu 10.10.  I created a USB filter for the AVRISP in the Virtual Machine settings; it doesn’t seem to work without it.  That might be what I was missing before.

To avoid having to run avrdude with root priveledges, I created the file /etc/udev/rules.d/10-avrisp2.rules with the contents:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="03eb", SYSFS{idProduct}=="2104", GROUP="adm", MODE="0666"

Pretty simple.

Oh, I should add that there is no guarantee other combinations of host/client OS will work.   If you’re getting different results, leave a comment.

Newark has hard to find ATmega32U2′s in stock?!  Yippee!

<click!>

Hey, wait a minute…

Bad Newark!

And no, they didn’t “just sell the last one.”

I want to thank everyone who bought kits and PCBs. Thank you for supporting me and the site!

Rather than reorder new boards of the existing design, I am taking this opportunity to re-evaluate my approach to a couple things, with the goal of reducing the BOM cost and lowering the overall cost of the kit.

The bad news is that this means there won’t be any more kits in stock in the short term. I’m planning to release a new PCB design within the next couple weeks, which means kits would be in stock within about a month. Because this is a busy time for me, I can’t promise specific dates, but I will do my best to keep the process moving because I know there are people waiting for the new kits.

If you need a kit right now, I believe Solarbotics still has some in stock.

Otherwise, stay tuned for updates.

And again, if you bought a kit, or even if you built the DIY version with spare parts and helped spread the word, thank you!

- Jeff

avrispmkii_libusb-win32_1.2.1.0.zip

Note that if you want to use the AVRISP mkII with AVR Studio, these are not the drivers you are looking for. You want the ones Atmel provides (if you installed the libusb drivers by mistake, re-run the AVR Studio installer to revert back).

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

AVR HV Rescue Shield Kit – $19.95

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.

Has anyone else noticed that the ATmega48/88/168 family of 8-bit AVR microcontrollers recently joined Atmel’s “mature devices” list, shown above?

Truthfully, I was not surprised to see this, having been tipped off by an Atmel sales rep earlier this year at ESC in San Jose.

The good news is that while these much-loved ATmega devices are slowly being obsoleted, they are being replaced by the largely-identical ‘PA’ series, which includes the ATmega48PA, ATmega88PA, ATmega168PA, and the ATmega328P.  The ‘PA’ devices are enhanced versions of the former ‘P’ series, which added energy-saving picoPower functionality to the original devices.

Porting code to the new family should be fairly straightforward given that the PA family is designed to be a drop-in replacement.  To help with the switchover, Atmel has released some migration notes, including AVR512, “Migration from ATmega48/88/168 to ATmega48P/88P/168P” and AVR528, “Migrating from ATmega48/88/168 and ATmega48P/88P/168P to ATmega48PA/88PA/168PA“.  Regardless, check your header files and fuse bits for any changes.

If you are anxious about switching devices, don’t panic, the ATmega48/88/168 devices are still in stock at all major distributors, while the PA devices aren’t even on the radar yet.  While professionals might want switch AVRs for new designs, hobbyists will likely still be using the older devices for years to come.  (Long live the PIC16F84!)