Hey guys iv been reading on programmers that few members bought and need help selecting one with the cord, Also im running windows 8 on my laptop is that going to be a problem ? also things i might need downloaded :) thanks for the help
TL866CS (or TL866A) from China - best cheapest programmer out there I guess
Yes, as other mentioned it is universal one this I should write “cheapest universal programmer”. There are cheaper ones for avr only stuff.
Are you programming other chip’s too for other uses? If all your doing is the Atmel AVR chips used in flashlights you’d be waisting about $50 buying that.
All that’s needed for what we do with the 105c/BLF drivers based on the 105c is a little $4 AVR programmer like this
For better or worse I don’t think that’s what most of us here are using. I’m using a USBASP clone that I probably bought from eBay.
EDIT: Which should work in Win8. I forget if the driver is signed or not, but it will be workable.
I’ve got the whole setup if you want, (USBASP clone, cable and clip), just PM me. I can’t figure out how to use it. It’s about a mile higher than my brain can reach, but that’s because I keep falling the gutter, LOL.
Thanks OL ill send u a pm
You need a way to attach it to the thing you’re programming. WarHawk-AVG posted a board recently for programming bare chips out-of-circuit. He and I also discussed using a test socket for that on page 9 of the STAR Firmware thread (which is also where he shared his PCB). Clips are typically used though, like what OL has.
I have the USBASP from Fasttech working with WIN 8.1 in my laptop. The driver is NOT signed. Loading an unsigned driver in WIN 8 takes a little work but it is not difficult.
Here is all the stuff I came across on the USBAVR…you guys are welcome to it
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/5nsfkghk5so38bv/AAC-MkGmib2w5nnCXpLYvX0ba
I just completed my setup and flashed my first driver yesterday. I’m using the same cheap programmer. The list and links of what I have:
Hardware:
Programmer from FastTech: http://www.fasttech.com/product/1002900
Clip: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SOIC8-SOP8-Flash-Chip-IC-Test-Clip-EEPROM-In-circuit-Programm-BIOS-93-25-24-26-2-/281148522982?pt=AU_B_I_Electrical_Test_Equipment&hash=item4175c201e6
Cable: https://www.fasttech.com/p/1011800
I pulled of the clip’s original cable and used 6 strands of the FastTech cable I bought to connect to the correct pins, just like Tom E did here: Want to learn how to reprogram my own drivers. Got the interface parts today
I had several different sources for the pin configuration, all gathered from a couple of BLF posts, and I got dizzy from switching between them so I edited them all into one image:
Software (in order of installation)
Driver for programmer, USBasp-win-driver-x86-x64-ia64-v1.2.5, from WarHawk’s dropbox link above (thanks WarHawk).
Libusb from here: Download libusb-win32-bin-1.2.6.0.zip (libusb-win32) (I read somewhere on this forum that it was needed so I installed it before any testing).
AVRDUDE 6.1 for uploading compiled hex files to the chip. I downloaded the avrdude-6.1-mingw32.zip file from here: Index of /releases/avrdude/
AVR Studio 5.1 to program and compile your own HEX files from source code: as5installer-stable-5.1.208-full.exe - Google Drive
There are later versions of AVR Studio, but I did not want to deviate the slightest from Comfychair’s excellent guide: howto: Use Atmel AVR Studio 5 to make a .hex file
Notes
In order to test the programmer you can use this AVRDUDE command:
avrdude -p t13 -c usbasp -n
Note that this command can test two things. First it can check weather AVRDUDE can find the programmer at all. If AVRDUDE can’t find the programmer you will see and error message like:
avrdude: error: could not find usb device
If it can find the programmer it will check if it can find the chip. If it can’t find the chip (possibly bad attached clip) the error message will look something like this:
avrdude: warning: cannot set sck period…
avrdude: error: program enable: target doesn’t answer. 1
If AVRDUDE can find the chip you will see something like this:
avrdude: warning: cannot set sck period…
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions
Reading | ###############################
So when you use this command to test and get an error message, check what kind of error message it is. I got the second error message (programer ok but no chip) and thought that AVRDUDE couldn’t even find the programmer. It took some head scratching and testing before I figured this one out.
The cannot set sck period warning shows up all the time, even when programming is fine. Don’t know what it means and couldn’t be bothered to flash new firmware into the programmer as it works for me and I don’t want to mess things up.
I read WarHawk’s excellent guide on using AVRDUDE to flash the chips: howto: flash ATtiny with AVRDude and command prompt
AVRDUDE is a command prompt software. Open a command prompt to use and make sure you open it with administrator rights. If you don’t know how to use a command prompt you can edit bat files and run them with admin rights, just make sure you have pause as the last command or you won’t see if the flash was successful or not. If you don’t know how to edit bat files either you might find all this a little too much.
I have not tried this on a computer infected with the Windows 8 or 8.1 virus. I have Windows 7 professional 64 bit.
Thanks for the new image Mike C. That looks like the new go-to image. Really comprehensive.
Can I use the Basic Arduino UNO (in Programming mode) + the Arduino IDE software to program the Attiny13a IC Directly (using the Soic Clip) without using the AVR ISP or CMD ?
Thanks
Yes. However, you can’t program using c firmware, which most of them are. You should be able to program hex files though. Someone else will have to help though, I only used my Arduino for high voltage serial programming a few times, since then it’s just collecting dust.