Thursday, June 25, 2009

Cheap USB AVR programmer

I have been using a serial-port AVR programmer (the Olimex one you can buy from Sparkfun) to do AVR development, but my laptop doesn't have a serial port.

There are a number of USB-based AVR programmers, and they're not particularly expensive (e.g., the Atmel AVR-ISP mkII is $34 from Digikey), but being the cheapskate that I am I was looking for something really inexpensive.

I'm happy to report that I've found one that works very well, and is only $10:

http://alldav.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=24

I'm using it with Sparkfun's AVR breakout board to bring the programming signals onto a breadboard using a single-row 6-pin cable from Digilent. Here's a picture of the whole setup:


The programmer is the small green board on the left. The breakout board is the even smaller red board connected to the programmer at a right angle.

In the host OS, the programmer appears as a serial port (/dev/ttyUSB0 on my Debian laptop). The programmer type for avrdude is "stk500v2".

As an additional bonus, the programmer supplies 5V to your circuit, using the host USB port as the power source. I don't think it will source a lot of current, but it's certainly fine for a few ICs and LEDs. The circuit on the breadboard in the picture has an atmega8 and an LED.

3 comments:

slmnhq said...

Are you playing around to develop a future class project?

David Hovemeyer said...

I have been thinking about how to use AVR-based projects in CS courses. I think it would be useful for CS students to know how to write code for embedded systems, and knowing some digital electronics wouldn't hurt either.

Gaurav Singh said...

hi
if some body want to buid a usb avr progammer

go to this link
http://microembeded.blogspot.com/2011/04/usbasp-usb-programmer-for-atmel-avr.html

live support will be provided if there is any problem