[panels] problems programming new boards and panels
- From: "Reiser, Michael" <reiserm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <panels@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 15:38:02 -0500
I received this question about some trouble programming the panels and
controller from Nina Vogt in the Desplan lab @ NYU:
I have finally received the controller board, as well as top and bottom
of the arena and the panels from Mettrix. I tried to program the panels
using AVR Studio, an AVR ISP mkII device connected to J1 on the
controller board and the panel attached to J2. I could never manage to
get the signature matching to the ATmega8 processor. The program did
read something and there was no error message displayed, but I could
never get matching. Do you have any idea what the problem could be?
Then, I tried to program the controller, but made a stupid mistake
there. In this case, the processor was recognized, but when I programmed
the fuses, I assumed that checking the appropriate boxes was sufficient
and proceeded to programming the flash without hitting the appropriate
button in the Fuses tab. The flash programming proceeded to almost the
end, but then there was an error message hinting at a frequency problem.
So, I changed the frequency in the Board tab to different values, but
now the processor is not recognized anymore, and the error message is
"entering programming mode...Failed". Is there a way to reset the
processor, so that I can start anew?
---
Hopefully both of these have simple resolutions:
* The first thing I would check is to make sure that the panels
actually have an ATmega8 processor, although this is what we have listed
on the panels website, I think the newest version of the panels that
Mettrix is making is using the ATmega168-this would be the first thing
to try! It is critical that you program the Atmel processor once it has
been identified, because otherwise it will certainly not work!
* As for the controller--as you now realize you need to press the
'Program' button on the fuses tab to get the fuse settings to program.
Since you did not do this, it is likely that your controller still has
the default fuse settings, so everything could be fine. The error
message you got probably has to do with bad communication between the
controller and the mkII. The Board tab sets the frequency of the 'board'
inside the mkII, so this is what I would change. Most of the available
values will work, but I would recommend 125 kHz as a good compromise
(the clock rate cannot be more 1/4 of the controller clock). Getting the
mkII to communicate with the processor is the most important first step
(try to test with signature matching).
Please let us know how it goes.
Best,
MR
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