FTDI-board

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Revision as of 19:33, 10 June 2011 by Msemtd (talk | contribs)
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Whilst working with the Xino, Paperduino, stripboarduino, breaduino, etc. I find that I need to keep swapping my microprocessor chips in and out of my Duemilanove to program them. Now, this isn't because I haven't tried programming them in-situ - I have and I have failed miserably!

Now I have one of these bad boys: a UM232R development module: -

Which is great, but I still haven't dedicated enough time to making it do all the Arduino programming tasks I require. So here I intend to detail my thoughts and document what I find out.

OK, most people have a cool FTDI cable with 5 or 6 pins. I don't have one and I feel less of a hacker because of it! I want to make the UM232R act like one of those.

OK, so what magic do I need to perform to get my Xino programmed?

With help from Dr Matt, who held the magic formula of having a 10nF capacitor between #CTS and the Reset pin, I was able to get my breadboard version working, and the following evening I had my stripboard version working (dodgy soldering!)

flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21085792@N00/sets/72157626929358874/


Next step is to add a 6 pin header for programming the Nanode.

The FTDI connector pins on the Nanode (left to right):-

  • GND (Black)
  • CTS# (Brown)
  • VCC (Red)
  • TXD (Orange)
  • RXD (Yellow)
  • RTS# (Green)

So we just need a single extra connection for the 6th pin.