For programming the avr we usually used a programming cable (bsd cable) connected to the parallel port of the PC. Now due to the fact that some of us own computers which has no parallel or serial port, so we decided to make ourselves a USB programming cable, and the information is taken from Steve’s page at http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/MIT/863.07/people/steve/usb.html also at the http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/fab/ site.

We had to make some small modifications on the original dasa.cad voltage programming limiter PCB. We noticed that we don’t have the AMP MTA 5-POS VERT PIN HDR, SMT and the one we had is the AMP MTA 5-POS R/A PIN HDR, SMT.

Programming commands:

USB-to- Serial: avrdude –p t44 –P /dev/ttyUSB0 –c dasa –U flash: w: file.hex (Linux)

Serial: avrdude –p t44 –P /dev/ttyS0 –c dasa –U flash: w: file.hex (Linux)

Parallel: avrdude –p t44 –c bsd –U flash: w: file.hex (Linux)

we also realezed that we can program using avrdude on windows/ windows vista, command prompt:

Serial: avrdude –p t44 –P com1 –c dasa –U flash: w: file.hex (windows)

USB-t0-serial adaptor:  avrdude –p t44 –P com1 –c dasa –U flash: w: file.hex (windows)

The modified dasa PCB

The USB-to-Serial adaptor.

The setup

S’khumbuzo Ndlovu

28-03-2009