Guide: how to flash ATtiny13a based drivers (NANJG, QLITE, etc.) with custom firmware

I don’t know which piece is more delicate than the next.

I was just going by what was posted in the very first post of this thread, where he says, in relation to the clip

It just seemed to me easier to only open and tinker with one end. But as long as it wired correctly, it won’t matter

Great job thanks for writing this up. Its just what I needed to get me started.

Well now you know. The part that gets killed is the “business end”. You’ll see wearing out clips mentioned in other SOIC-clip related discussions here on BLF. Damaging the solder joints like Hoop warns about is nothing but an annoyance. Once you have one in hand you’ll understand.

Good idea NeilP. I’ll have to try that and see if it’s any easier.

but only 6 conductors used, so no big issue.

One of us does not understand the other. What are you getting at?

I was not understand what you were getting at with a quote without any text of your own.

It is a 10 pin connector, with an 8 pin cable, we know that, and only 6 are used for programming the driver chip
The connector has to be opened up to move one wire over from pin 8 to pin 9, which is the MISO output, this is then connected to pin 5 on the ‘crocodile clip’.

Hoop mentions that pulling the pins at the crocodile SOIC clip is ‘iffy’ as the connectors and solder joints are delicate.

My initial post was merely to ask why the complete swap of all the wires was not done at the IDC plug.

Hoop got what I was saying, but you thought that moving the IDC pins was more ‘risky’ than moving the pins at the crocodile plug without a proper insertion tool.

all of these little connections are difficult, so my thought was simply one to try to keep the risk at just one end of the cable…so only have to fiddle at one end.

When I have done these IDC connectors before, I don’t recall any problem with them in relation to not having a proper insertion tool.

I could not quite not quite get what you were getting at quoting the post from earlier.

Ah, I see. You replied to FmC’s post. Since there wasn’t any additional text at first I thought you were quoting me…

Ah yes I replied to FmC post…the danger of using an iPhone!!

I did not say it is iffy; I said don’t pull on the wires, pull on the pins. Soldered connections in themselves are not that strong. If you pull a wire off of a pin all you have to do is resolder it to fix it. No big deal.

Working with just the connector end is a good suggestion, though I will have to see if it is actually easier to do and to explain how to do. There is the variable that the pins may not always be in the same spot on the clip end from the factory so you would have to connect the wires to the connector according to how they are in the clip. I could probably make it relatively easy to understand but I don’t think it will be as simple as the method I describe in post 1.

I have ordered one of the multicolored ribbon cables as well so I’ll add that connection method in post 2 eventually.

No, you did not say iffy…that was just my take on what you said…a very brief paraphrase if you like.

I’d probably just put a single table quoting pin number on the USB board, and the pin it has to connect to on the IC.

if any one is going to be attempting this, they are pretty likely to be capable of working that out. This is all of course assuming that the pin out of the USB board from each supplier is the same. is it an industry standard pin out? I know with the programming cable we use to flash the MCU on the e-bikes, various RS232 to USB boards all seem to have different pinouts.

Post 2 may eventually explain alternate cable connection methods and also add labels to the programmer board’s pins.

As mentioned by MikeC in post #15, he’s put together a compilation graphic with header labels as well here. With enough brain power it can all be figured out from that.

I tried to order some today but bloody Paypal account playing up.

Sorry - ignore my last post… :zipper_mouth_face:

I was thinking it was unavoidable to do both ends.

I connected the USBASP to the SOIC clip using prototyping jumpers.

I used pin 10 of the USBASP header for GND after probing the board with an ohm-meter. I bought my USBASP from fasttech.

the link in the OP for AVR Tools is dead. Where else can the proper program be found?

edit: I believe I found it. Maybe it can be added to the OP?

Link

I still use WinAVR to install AVRDUDE. WinAVR download | SourceForge.net

Note the warnings about the installer potentially damaging your PATH variable. I don’t remember if this is a real or imagined problem, but I suspect that it’s real. Before you run the WinAVR installer you should look up how to get to the Windows PATH variable and copy and paste it into Notepad or similar. After installing WinAVR go back to that place and copy the new ruined one. In Notepad combine that with the new ruined one and then paste that whole thing back in place of what WinAVR put there.

Hmmm, I see that this is intended as a replacement for WinAVR, which hasn’t been updated for years. Maybe I should be using MHV AVR Tools myself!

Hoop’s link appears to be the official webpage for this project, so IMO shouldn’t be changed to some ‘free software downloads’ type website. It appears that they are simply having a DNS outage )or are in the middle of a hosting/DNS change).

You are probably right.
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In other news, I really can’t get this to work. Everything installed correctly and I’ve gone over my clip pin order 5 times, but AVRDude still says “target doesn’t answer”
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edit: I guess the 6th time is the charm. now it appears to be working

Pilotdog68, that’s got to be the single biggest hurdle in this process for most folks: getting AVRDUDE to stop giving error messages. Either “target doesn’t answer” or “avrdude: Expected signature for ATtiny13 is 1E 90 07” can be maddening.