Revision as of 08:42, 3 January 2013

This is an example how to upload a program to the ATtiny13 microprocessor so that it will act as autonomeous computing device. An example is playing jingle bells.

Have

• an ATtiny13
• an ft232r chip
• a program for the ATtiny13, e.g. blink2.hex
• SUSE Linux 12.2. Other distributions may work similar, but you are on your own

Know

The ATtiny13 looks like this:

            ------
 PB0(MOSI)-|ATtiny|-GND
 PB1(MISO)-|  13  |-
 PB2 (SCK)-|      |-
       VCC-|     o|-RES
            ------

Do

• install some dependencies needed to build avrdude:

yast -i bison flex gcc make

• install an avrdude update as described here: http://doswa.com/2010/08/24/avrdude-5-10-with-ftdi-bitbang.html
• invert the FT232R's Bits as described under ftdi.
• connect MISO with RXD, SCK with TXD, MOSI with RTS and RES with DTR, then GND with GND and VCC with VCC. It will look like this:

      ------
 RTS-|ATtiny|-GND
 RXD-|  13  |-
 TXD-|      |-
 VCC-|     o|-DTR
      ------

• connect the FTDI chip with the computer
• unload the ftdi driver:

rmmod ftdi_sio

• test if avrdude works. Tell it to output the hfuse:

tweedleburg:~/at/avrdude-5.10 # ./avrdude -cft232r -pt13 -P/dev/ttyUSB0 -U hfuse:r:-:h -B 1
avrdude: BitBang OK 
avrdude: pin assign miso 1 sck 0 mosi 2 reset 4
avrdude: drain OK 

ft245r:  bitclk 4800 -> ft baud 2400
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.00s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9007
avrdude: current erase-rewrite cycle count is -158 (if being tracked)
avrdude: reading hfuse memory:

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.01s

avrdude: writing output file "<stdout>"
0xeb

avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK

avrdude done.  Thank you.

• seems to work. Now upload blink2.hex:

tweedleburg:~/at/avrdude-5.10 # ./avrdude -cft232r -pt13 -P/dev/ttyUSB0 -U flash:w:blink2.hex -B 1

Now draw RES and the thing will start blinking :)))

tweedleburg:~/at/avrdude-5.10 # ./avrdude -cft232r -pt13 -P/dev/ttyUSB0 -e -U flash:r:-:i -B 1

Know-how

This does not fit into this article any more but I found it out: Read the flash:

tweedleburg:~/at/avrdude-5.10 # ./avrdude -cft232r -pt13 -P/dev/ttyUSB0 -U flash:r:-:h -B 1

TroubleShooting

Symptom

avrdude: /dev/ttyUSB0 open failed 

Solution

Unload the driver blocking /dev/ttyUSB0, in my case:
modprobe -r ftdi_sio

See also

• programming electronics
• http://www.bot-thoughts.com/2011/07/working-with-attiny13.html
• http://doswa.com/2010/08/24/avrdude-5-10-with-ftdi-bitbang.html