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Normal Topic Using a hardware programmer (Read 4244 times)
Gilles Plante
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Using a hardware programmer
Feb 11th, 2014 at 9:08pm
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Hi,

I am in the process of selecting and buying a hardware programmer. I thought that it would be a good idea to see what Tools > Visual Micro (Arduino 1.0.x) >  Programmers would list. Well the menu Programmers is grayed out  Huh.

Is it so because not programmer is actually connected ?

A few more questions:
  • are there programmers recommended over others / not compatible with AtmelStudio+VisualMicro ?
  • is there some way from within AtmelStudio to burn a bootloader ?
Thanks
« Last Edit: Feb 11th, 2014 at 9:22pm by Gilles Plante »  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: Using a hardware programmer
Reply #1 - Feb 11th, 2014 at 9:33pm
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Hi Giles,

I am not very experienced with programmers. I have an avrISP mkII which works well and other users are using it without problem. I also hear people use the "Arduino as ISP" but it is fiddly.

Visual Micro currently only uses the tools provided with the Arduino Ide

Using Atmel Studio tools instead of the ones that come with Arduino is currently a hot topic and under investigation. Atmel Corp. are helping with this. I am not sure what the result will be, we will know more in a few weeks.

It seems that over the past few years Atmel have started to use a usb driver called Jungo which is installed (if you clicked OK) with Atmel Studuio 6.1. 

The Atmel Jungo drivers are not compatible with the Arduino Ide so currently you have to decide which tool you want to use "native atmel" or "visual micro/arduino" and then install the driver for that tool. 

If I recall the  avrisp mkII comes with an install disk containing the driver but I lost mine a long time ago. This article provides an alternative way to install an Arduino compatible usb driver for the avrisp mkII. 

tip: Re-installing the Jungo driver at some future time can be made easier by extracting the Usb Installer from the AtmelStudio.msi (should be in your downloads folder). Once the usb installer is extracted it can be run at any time to re-install the usb. On window8 run the usb installer as Administrator

Programmers menu disabled?

If you are using Arduino 1.5.x then the programmers menu can be grayed out for a number of reasons because 1.5 supports a programmers list per platform. An example would be switching between an Arduino Uno and an Arduino Due. The Arduino Ide does not provide any programmers for the Arduino Due so we would expect the programmers menu to be disabled where as the Uno should certainly show a list of programmers.

There is a bug in Visual Micro if you have a custom (non-arduino) board selected and the custom board inherits the programmers of the default Arduino boards. In this case the programmers menu will be disabled. This is easily resolved by copying the programmers.txt file from arduinoide/hardware/arduino/avr to where ever you have located the boards.txt of the custom hardware definition.

If it's none of the above then please let me know which version of arduino and which board. Thanks
« Last Edit: Feb 11th, 2014 at 9:39pm by Tim@Visual Micro »  
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Gilles Plante
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Re: Using a hardware programmer
Reply #2 - Feb 11th, 2014 at 9:53pm
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Quote:
using Atmel Studio tools instead of the ones that come with Arduino is currently a hot topic and under investigation.

I meant to use AtmelStudio with VisualMicro to burn a bootloader, sorry for the confusion.

Quote:
There is a bug in Visual Micro if you have a custom (non-arduino) board selected and the custom board inherits the programmers of the default Arduino boards. In this case the programmers menu will be disabled.

Bulls'eye  Wink. My Target is a board from Sparkfun. I changed it to board from Arduino and Programmers is not grayed out.

We will go with one of the programmers in the list, USBTinyISP from adafruit.

Thanks
« Last Edit: Feb 11th, 2014 at 9:55pm by Gilles Plante »  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: Using a hardware programmer
Reply #3 - Feb 11th, 2014 at 9:56pm
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Great. Yes the burn bootloader that Visual Micro uses works the same as the Arduino Ide.
  
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