I tried -B and -i for avrdude, but it can’t set SCK on this usbasp. I think it’s a newer one which does it “automagically”. I tried bridging JP3 and it didn’t seem to change anything. I think JP2 is its self-programming jumper. JP1 is used for 5V/3.3V select, and doesn’t help either. I could try to update the usbasp firmware, but it requires extra hardware I don’t have.
So, no luck yet.
:~
I should have mentioned not to go too low. Unless one has a usbasp with updated firmware. I too noticed that we can’t seem to set SCK in our cheap chinese usbasp clones. And that slow jumper doesn’t seem to work either. Sorry, TK. 
Would you happen to have an arduino laying around? You can use one of them to update the usbasp firmware. Or use the arduino to reprogram your attiny. Looks like you need a slow sck version of the ardunioISP sketch. Like this one.
I suppose I could probably use a raspberry pi 2 to do it… or get an arduino and use that. But not for about a month, at least. I’ll have very limited access to things for a while.
For the ATTiny13 I’ve been using:
avrdude -p t13 -c usbasp -u -Uflash:w:battcheck.hex:a -Ulfuse:w:0x75:m -Uhfuse:w:0xFF:m
What should I be using for ATTiny85?
I use 3 different .BAT files in my \AVRDUDE folder - one for testing the connection, one for fuses, and one for downloading. There are 3 fuse bytes for the 25/45/85, not two like the 13A.
T85.BAT:
avrdude -p t85 -c usbasp -n
85FUSES.BAT:
avrdude -p t85 -c usbasp -Ulfuse:w:0xe2:m -Uhfuse:w:0xdf:m -Uefuse:w:0xff:m
rem C3 for low byte is 6.4 Mhz
85NARSIL.BAT:
rem 85Narsil - downloads Narsil (Tiny85 e-switch UI configurable)
rem
avrdude -p attiny85 -c usbasp -u -Uflash:w:\Tiny254585Projects\Narsil\Narsil\Release\Narsil.hex:a
-Ueeprom:w:\Tiny254585Projects\Narsil\Narsil\Release\Narsil.eep:a
This is a great tool and reference for the fuses: ATMEL Fuse Calculator. It will generate the fuse params formatted to use with 'avrdude'.
Thanks guys. I am new to this arena and discussion like this is helpful.
It was only 6 months ago when I ordered my first 18650 (Latticebright “XP-E”) flashlight. Initially, I merely wanted to play with the electronics to modify the driver. Eventually, I concluded it is easy to get an MCU based driver, write my own firmware to achieve what I want to do. I was very apprehensive when I first considered the ATTINY85v. So I share my experience here for the next guy. May be he/she can approach with a bit more confidence.
I already have my own firmware written for the ATTINY13A. It has all the functions I wanted but a very bad UI for selection. I was at around 1020 bytes. So, to do a better UI, I need more flash space.
While I was still deciding, I blew my ATTINY13A by mistake. So, no more deciding, Mouser was happy. With my ATTINY85V from Mouser at hand, I rush to install it. My first one did not went well. I must have a hidden solder bridge somewhere. Removing it and resolder again, the thing worked like a charm. For some reason during initial install, the ADC always read around 2.7V to 2.8V, yet measuring with DMM, the ADC pin is reading right at 4.7K to ground and 19.1K to diode. I double check the code for mistaken where I might have set the ADC pin to OUT and send a 1 there, but that was not the case. So believing it is a dry joint, I desoldered the TINY85 and resoldered it. It works.
Beside the on for the test/development board, I have another 4 for real flashlights. After the first one , the other 5 were no problem. No technical problem anyway. All went very smooth except the 4th one. The next paragraph is a distraction:
The SAGA of Chip#4
My “work flow” is: first put it on SOIC clip to check for chip operations - read the flash, eeprom, fuses, etc., then bend legs, then install. On ATTINY85V #4, it slipped the clip and shoot out of the spring-clip away from my electronic work area to somewhere around my PC desk. An hour later, a miracle that I found it in that rat-nest of wires on the ground between the PC desk and the wall. So, I finish my read-test, programmed it, and re-read it AOK. I bend the leg on this 4th one. About ready and on final check, it felt off my plier. So problem, this is not like behind the desk… An hour later, I found somehow it landed BEHIND my backup SLA battery. Ok, at least I got it. So on to soldering. After testing the TINY13A and the NANJG105c, I removed the TINY13A and reach for my ATTINY85V#4 - it is missing! The chip is gone! I looked at the floor a dozen times, I just couldn’t figure out where this chip went. It is not on the table, it is not on the floor, and it did not felt into or behind anything! I looked, and looked, on the floor, move the stuff on the table, move the stuff from boxes around around the table… Where the hell is chip#4!!!
Back to about the 85V. I took it as a challenge to find out what I needed to do for code change. I did the research by the datasheets alone as a challenge. I came back to this thread to see what changes are recommended and I did do all those from the datasheet research alone. So I passed my own challenge.
The bending of the leg is not hard. it is best to re-flatten/re-align the end-part of the leg to ensure good contact with the pad on the PCB. Secure one outer leg (nearer to edge of PCB) first, check all leg for good positioning, then secure one more leg and recheck again. Then finish soldering, check the soldering and clean up any bridging.
Now, my 4 ATTINY85V flashlights has the features/functions I wanted exactly.
That was at times a frustrating project, but it works well now. I have four “new” flashlights with TINY85V, and still have a TINY85V on my work-bench “flash light” for more playing-around-with for future versions. Getting the TINY85V’s leg bend right and installed it right requires a lot of patience, but it fits very nice and the result is very rewarding.
The SAGA of Chip#4 Episode 2
By now, it was > 4 hours on this chip alone. I cleaned the floor slowly and gently an inch strip at a time - as far as 6 feet from the table clear wall-to-wall but found nothing. By now, I am totally puzzled. How can a chip this big just vanished! I gave up, sat on the floor, and a bit dumbfounded. Suddenly, something caught my eyes in mid-air. I grab a working flashlight - this time, not on the floor, not on the table, and about 2 feet off the floor. There it was, hung on a small spider-web between the table-leg and the wall in mid-air. Well, no spider in my house was going to eat silicon for dinner that night. That chip took me half a day to finally finish. Like I said, not really a technical problem. Just a hungry spider.
Hi,
i think i have a problem with bistro firmware or my board components.
It doesn’t access to hidden modes, instead it enters in configuration menu when i do a med tap, no matter what mode is set.
Setting memory on/off makes no difference, always works as next mode memory.
Any idea what the problem could be? :~
Rick NJ,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I really appreciated your chip searching experiences. I've have a couple 13a's I never found. I need to search for spider webs in the future. That is wild.
As far as bending the legs. I don't bend the legs until after I flash them. I then push the legs in at the inward arch that is just above the "foot". That approach as worked fine each time. I do find that I touch some pins up with a fine solder tip just to make sure vibration doesn't break the connection of pins that seem light on solder. With the pins some much taller, the extra solder doesn't interfer with future reclipping (reflashes).
Yeah, it was wild. Knocking it off the table was common. Finding it on the ground was common. I never expected it to be caught by a spider-web while falling to the floor.
Where it was, it would have been almost touching my forehead the half dozen times I looked at the floor back there, but my attention was totally focused on the ground!
Like you, I took mental note also. Next time I drop another tiny parts, I would check around my table for any spider-web and see if the SMDs is dangling there.
I too programmed the TINY85V before soldering. After soldering it on, my first test was reading it back and do a file-compare and re-program it again as tests. That gives me the comforting feeling the (a) it is soldered on OK (at least the programming-related pins, but good enough). and (b) it was not cooked while soldering.
My first SMD soldering job was on an ADS1115 (0.5mm pitch 16bit ADC), that went AOK the first time. Second time I worked on sub-mm pitch was an INA219 (12 bit ADC Volt Current Measurement IC). The joints looked great, but the chip was cooked to a crisp.
So, even with something as big as the TINY85V, I am always concerned about cooking the chip. Even all the TINY13A I desoldered are in working condition, if only I can find them a place to work.
EDIT: made a mistake, it was not the INA219 is a Volt/Current measurement IC. Not a 12 bit ADC.
I am having a similar problem, but worse - it comes up in config mode, always. I'm using the vers from 2015-10-18, but I was told the vers to use is 2015-11-08, here: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~toykeeper/flashlight-firmware/tiny25/files/head:/ToyKeeper/bistro/.
For fuses, Halo said here:
bin/flash-25.sh (2015-11-08) fuses
L: 0xe2, H: 0xdf, E: 0xff in Fuse Calculator
Looking through my files it seems I’ve been using BOD 1.8v, startup delay 64ms (max). L: 0xe2, H: 0xde, E: 0xff. I believe I been using those since the beginning with bistro, ignoring the ones mentioned in bistro.c. Thought a longer startup delay wouldn’t hurt anything.
Thanks for the reply Tom E.
Well, fuses is something i am a bit lost.
Sorry for the few information in my previous post, it was too late:
I am using hex file from 2015-11-08, from the link you pointed, whith an attiny25v.
For fuses i used the ones in bistro.c file:
Low: 0xd2
High: 0xde
Ext: 0xff
I used those same fuses as you and am having problems.
I think 0xE2, 0xDF, 0xFF are the correct or best ones to use. No time to try yet though, hoping today.
Ok, I’ll try them.
Ohhh - just tried - made no difference for me... Posting on the TK thread bout it...
What a pity! thanks for trying, you save me quite work.
I´ll see what Toykepper says.
I don’t know which MCU the Bistro firmware was written for. Since you said you have memory problem, it is not likely to be a fuse problem. Instead, it points to one of the main difference between the MCU’s:
The ATTINY13 has 64 byte EEPROM
The ATTINY25 has 128 byte EEPROM
The ATTINY45 has 256 byte EEPROM
The ATTINY85 has 512 byte EEPROM
Therefore:
ATTINY13 and ATTINY25 can compile with uint8_t or int8_t and use only LOW byte address.
ATTINY45 may fail with int8_t and should use the unsigned uint8_t only.
ATTINY85 may fail with int8_t and uint8_t and should use int16_t or uint16_t. Both EEARH and EEARL must be set. When using C, EEAR should work (but of course depends on the C compiler versions).
You can expect memory may not work properly across all three MCU’s. Unless the Bistro firmware is limiting itself to the first 128 bytes of EEPROM, it may be storing your memory in nonexisting eeprom locations.
When I reworked my ATTINY13A firmware for the ATTINY85, I had to modify my EEPROM functions accordingly.
Suggestion:
- Re-burn your firmware with the fuse setting you are using, which should reset all your memory pointers and erase your EEPROM. If it works immediately after re-flashing, do an eeprom dump. Save that file.
- If re-burning doesn’t temporarily remove the problem (and you are using ATTINY25 and 0xe2, 0xdf, 0xff), eeprom space is not the problem. If it works immediately after reburn, continue.
- Keep changing so it keeps updating eeprom. After just under 64 times do another eeprom dump.
- Keep changing so it keeps updating eeprom. At just under 128 times do another eeprom dump.
- You get it, do it at before 256 times and before 512 times.
- If it fails before then, make sure you do an eeprom dump immediately after you noticed the failure.
I don’t know what you use to flash, so I cannot give you the whole command, but after your burner specific stuff, it should be like:
avrdude avr_burner_specific_params -U eeprom:r:readin.hex:i
This run saves your eeprom into file readin.hex. Since you will be saving more than one, name it read128.hex, read256.hex, etc.
With that info, one can determine if it is overrunning the existing eeprom. When you do have those hex files, upload it. I’ll take a look.
Bistro is written for the 25. The Group buy for the X6-X5 pair is using Bistro on a 25.
Bistro builds for me on Atmel Studio 7.0 at 2038 bytes Program memory, 28 bytes Data memory. Tight on code, only 21.8% of data memory used.
Any idea how it reads the eeprom? Does it have wear leveling?
With my own home-made firmware (ATTINY13 version), gcc reports I use only 6 to 8 bytes of memory of 64 bytes. But in my eeprom read routine, I use 38 bytes of buffer (plus more local variables). It actually fails when I use >38, the total 64 byte RAM is not adequate. Stack-full! Stack usage is not part of “data” but certainly use RAM space. The compiler cannot always determine how much stack you are using. So total DATA is not the same as total RAM usage.
EDIT:
One more thought. If it is a group-buy, is it a fully made flashlight or buyer-modified?
The same fuse setting and the same software should work exactly the same. The only variable there is start-up condition and/or hardware issues. That it is a memory problem (he is not calling out other issues) points to probably it calling different functions (start up condition) being different or hardware problem. Calling other functions will mean different stack_usage which may affect eeprom reading function.
Is there any star selected options? If so, what are they? Does it fail with default options only?
Yes - all our recent firmware versions use wear leveling (mode memory and config settings).
Oh boy lots of Q's... In some of our recent BLF Group buys, we try to get a true "modded light", and it's performance/function, to the masses, and this group buy for the BLF SE X6 v2 and X5 is exactly that - cannot be bought anywhere, no modding required, fully working at high performance, but to tweak it out fully, you need to add bypass's on the springs. It's also somewhat high-end for a budget light - X6 is SS/Cu and the X5 is 100% Cu body, so these are very special. But you can also buy the pair in regular black anodized alum for cheaper.
Not sure bout star options - I don't use them - might be a compile option.