Week workflow

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Tools used

• soldering station
• usbtiny ISP

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Software Used

• AVRdude
• Arduino IDE

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Introduction

Read the Datasheet

A few thoughts about it:

• are you joking? 200 plus pages of very technical stuff!
• slept on the first pages
• is there a movie version?

One a more serious note, I really think this assignment is one of the hardest I m stuck because of this datasheet.

Will jump to programing and use it to consult only. While I do will detach important sections bellow:

ATTINY44A pin configurations

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Programing

Because I was a bit confuse on how to do it I decided to list all steps in detail and have some sort of template for my next projects. With what is applicable I fill the gaps after each step and do while documenting it, and that is what follows bellow:

1. Burn bootloader


1. identify programer

- avrdude or Atmel Studio 7 (windows only)

2. identify bootloader and makefile

- for that I start by pointing I want to program a ATTINY44A

- Download makefile

- Bootloader is not going to be used here since there is no USB

3. download bootloader

- not applicable

4. identify commands to burn bootloader

- nope

5. burn bootloader

- nope



2. Burn firmware


1. identify example code:

- There is this code from Prof. Neil

2. identify commands to compile and burn firmware

- with all files prior downloaded on one directory, in linux I rename the file to makefile and run the script to create the firmware (this step I will repeat every time I want to modify the code:

mv hello.ftdi.44.echo.c.make makefile
make



renaming to makefile and compiling

3. compile source code

- done in previous step

4. Adapting makefile to work with my programer



I had to edit the makefile file to work with my programmer. That was done by replacing the entry usbtiny with usbasp 2 times, one when burning the firmware the other when burning the fuses

5. burn firmware

run:

make program-usbtiny



renaming to makefile and compiling

6. identify what fuses to burn

- that was done already in the makefile

7. burn fuses

run:

make program-usbasp-fuses



burning fuses

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Programing with Arduino IDE

I decided to try Arduino IDE as well to program my board.

In order to do it there are a few steps that should work regardless of the os

1. Add additional board to the boards manager:

Paste the following into (Preferences)-(Additional Boards Manage URLs:)

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/damellis/attiny/ide-1.6.x-boards-manager/package_damellis_attiny_index.json



2. Chose your new added board, in my case ATtiny44



3. Chose your processor, same as before



4. select clock, because I am using an external 20Mhz oscillator, I chose "External 20 MHZ"



5. Because I want to do some serial monitoring on this board I chose the best mach for my FTDI wich is "/dev/cu.usbserial-A7032T9C



6. The last step before compiling and burning was to select the programmer, in my case "USBasp"

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First test

Burning Neil's code "hello.ftdi.44.echo.c"

Here instead of using terminal and avrdude, I used the Arduino IDE as it has a built-in serial monitor.

The results are as follows in the video

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Program something else

Now I will try to program it to blink as I press the button.

1. determine the pin where switch is connected



after looking into the PCB schematics I determined the button is connected to pin 10

2. determine the pin where LED is connected

after looking into the PCB schematics I determined the LED is connected to pin 6

3. Code

In human language I want something like this:

1. wait for button
2. if button pressed blink LED 3 times
3. if not go back to begining

the problem is I never really coded from scratch only changed code, so that will be a challenge...

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1st iteration

how did I do it

I Tried first to customise the blink code from Arduino IDE with my pin numbers, That did not work

I realise after trial and error that the pin number on the data sheet does not correspond to the arduino pin number.

So after empirically finding the right pin number I programmed the board and got it to blink!

Next I wanted the LED to react when pressing the button, so I searched for attiny44 arduino pin. With the right pin number in hand I replaced the pins in the code and it worked!

now I inverted when the LED turns on and off.

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Side activity

I was a bit annoyed my board would not advise me when powered so I decide to solder a red LED and a 22 Ohms resistor and a resistor so if I got the connections wrong I would know and switch it.

Thats the before and after

Before

After

After