These SMD prototyping shields from Elecfreaks are pretty useful for building and testing discrete circuits made with mostly 2 and 3-terminal surface mount devices. I’ve used them quite a bit over the past year to prototype power supply and switching circuits (mostly SOT-23s). I like to cut them into small pieces with a large metal shear and stick them to larger PCBs (the ones I’m testing/modifying) with thick double-stick foam tape.
Today I made a few improvements to the AVR HV Rescue Shield documentation, including screenshots of the Arduino sketch in action and a parts list in the assembly instructions.
Expect a FAQ and other stuff in the future as I get user feedback.
Rescue Shield says: Buy me!
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 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:
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!
To purchase bare PCBs and kits, head over to the AVR HV Rescue Shield product page.
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!
What’s this???
In response to the continued demand for a PCB version of my Arduino-based AVR High Voltage Programmer, I just released a first cut to BatchPCB and should have a prototype within 3-4 weeks.
This design is an improvement upon the original HV programmer shield in the following areas:
I hope to have kits for sale in early February. Sorry for the delay in getting these made, but I wanted to make the best possible shield I could!
