SPEEEduino v1.0 and the VooDoo sequence

At that moment in time, yours truly only have 1x working Arduino Uno lying around, and definitely could not do Arduino as ISP to burn bootloader into a new ATMega328p on the SPEEEduino. So he transplanted the ATMega328p what is in working condition from the Arduino Uno into SPEEEduino, assumes it will work straight out of the box, and start to program away. Fate took an unfortunate turn when he tries to download the code into SPEEEduino transplanted with ATMega328p.

yours truly was greeted with the legendary
"
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x47

"

he thought he had a batch of bricked PCB, but upon closer examinations he noticed the LED on pin13 blinks according to the example code downloaded via the Arduino Uno to verify the functionality of ATMega328p before the transplant.

Then he verified the following connection via continuity test

DTR->pin1(MCU)->C3=ok

tx(CP2102)->rx pin2(MCU)=ok

rx(CP2102->tx pin3(MCU)=ok

VCC(CP2102)->pin7(MCU)=ok

GND(CP2102)->pin8(MCU)=ok

Computing Environment

1. Win8.1, Arduino IDE 1.6.7. SPEEEduino with transplanted ATMega832p gave this error of avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

2. Ubuntu14, Arduino IDE 1.6.8. SPEEEduino with transplanted ATMega832p works out of the box in this environment.

A little consolation prize is needed to keep troubleshooting to solve the mystery of not working in windows environment, but works in linux environment.

If you landed on this page looking for solution for the legendary error of avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding or avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x47 look no further than the next step where yours truly outlined the voodoo sequence. If you are interested to know the troubleshooting sequence, look further.

SPEEEduino is connected with CP2102 on a valid com port on a lenovo laptop running windows8.1 and Arduino IDE 1.5.6 r2 with verbose mode turn on upload via File->preferences

when you are about to press the "upload" button to compile and download the hex to the board, press and hold the "reset" button on SPEEEduino. upon seeing the first handshake "avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20] ", release the reset button. you will now able to program the ATMega328p. refer to the screenshot for details.

this voodoo sequence seems to be counter intuitive, because Arduino Bootloader supports auto reset feature with a 0.1uF cap and 10K resistor is connected between the DTR line to the RST on ATMega328.

yours truly took a 2 days scraping the Internet forum posts, and experimenting on many laptops to be able to download the hex successfully.

this voodoo sequence is the workaround for the legendary error of avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding or avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x0a

Good Riddance

Post is also available on http://www.instructables.com/id/SPEEEduino-a-Christmas-Special/