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I'm making a custom board with AtMega2560-16AU as MCU and CH340G as bootloader (schematic can be seen in the picture). I have printed the custom PCB and soldered everything in place now I want to program the bootloader.

pcb schematic

I connected my Arduino UNO with my custom board like shown in the fritzing schematic below. My custom pcb doesn't look like Arduino MEGA but the connections are the same.

connections

I go to Arduino IDE and upload the ArduinoISP example (baudrate:115200) while choosing programmer as "Arduino as ISP". step 1

And when I upload the example I get a response like this:

avrdude: Version 6.3-20190619
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\ArduinoLLC.ArduinoIDE_1.8.42.0_x86__mdqgnx93n4wtt\hardware\tools\avr/etc/avrdude.conf"

         Using Port                    : COM4
         Using Programmer              : arduino
         Overriding Baud Rate          : 115200
         AVR Part                      : ATmega328P
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PC2
         RESET disposition             : dedicated
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           eeprom        65    20     4    0 no       1024    4      0  3600  3600 0xff 0xff
           flash         65     6   128    0 yes     32768  128    256  4500  4500 0xff 0xff
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : Arduino
         Description     : Arduino
         Hardware Version: 3
         Firmware Version: 4.4
         Vtarget         : 0.3 V
         Varef           : 0.3 V
         Oscillator      : 28.800 kHz
         SCK period      : 3.3 us

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

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

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e950f (probably m328p)
avrdude: reading input file "C:\Users\ahmet\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_251950/ArduinoISP.ino.hex"
avrdude: writing flash (4354 bytes):

Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.68s

avrdude: 4354 bytes of flash written
avrdude: verifying flash memory against C:\Users\ahmet\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_251950/ArduinoISP.ino.hex:
avrdude: load data flash data from input file C:\Users\ahmet\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_251950/ArduinoISP.ino.hex:
avrdude: input file C:\Users\ahmet\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_251950/ArduinoISP.ino.hex contains 4354 bytes
avrdude: reading on-chip flash data:

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.53s

avrdude: verifying ...
avrdude: 4354 bytes of flash verified

avrdude done.  Thank you.

As far as I know so far there's no problem.

And now I move to step 2 which now requires me to switch the board to ArduinoMega from tools. And click burn bootloader. enter image description here

When I click burn bootloader I get a response like this:

avrdude: Version 6.3-20190619
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\ArduinoLLC.ArduinoIDE_1.8.42.0_x86__mdqgnx93n4wtt\hardware\tools\avr/etc/avrdude.conf"

         Using Port                    : COM4
         Using Programmer              : stk500v1
         Overriding Baud Rate          : 19200
         AVR Part                      : ATmega2560
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PA0
         RESET disposition             : dedicated
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           eeprom        65    10     8    0 no       4096    8      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           flash         65    10   256    0 yes    262144  256   1024  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : STK500
         Description     : Atmel STK500 Version 1.x firmware
         Hardware Version: 2
         Firmware Version: 1.18
         Topcard         : Unknown
         Vtarget         : 0.0 V
         Varef           : 0.0 V
         Oscillator      : Off
         SCK period      : 0.1 us

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s

avrdude: Device signature = 0xffffff (probably .avr8x_mega) (retrying)

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying)

Error while burning bootloader.
Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes!  Invalid device signature.
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

Now when I clicked burn the bootloader I got a response saying invalid signature. So far I tried to:

  1. Change baudrates and try the same steps.
  2. Tried to change the avrdude.txt file. I tried to change the signature that was searched for which I couldn't change it because windows 10 wouldn't allow me even though I gave myself all the admin permissions.

So as a solution to this signature problem people have put an electrolytic capacitor that has 10nF or 10uF value between GND and RST pins of the programmer Arduino.

Also when I tried this for the first time I got a value different than "Off" for oscillator in the 2nd step.

So what should I do? Do I need to change my oscillator and try again or do I need that polarized 10uF capacitor?

Sorry for poorly formatting this post. Thank you so much for reading. Any answers would be appreciated.

Improve this question
8
  • Please no capslock. Thats like shouting and its difficult to read
    – chrisl
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 12:43
  • "10nF or 10uF". 10nF will not to the job. If you've been testing with 10nF switch to 10uF an see what happens.
    – timemage
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 13:25
  • @timemage I haven't tried either of those. I'm asking if it would help at all.
    – Exclose
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 13:35
  • Defeating the UNO's DTR reset mechanism is a necessity when using it as a programmer (arduinoisp.ino). A 10uFcap between RESET and GND is a a way to do that. In short, yes it will help. It should have been mentioned in whatever tutorials and documentation you've been following.
    – timemage
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 13:39
  • A 10-100uF capacitor on the reset pin of the "master" Arduino prevents it from resetting when the Serial port is opened, which would interfere with the process of writing the bootloader to the Mega2560. There are other ways to prevent this, but this is one of the simplest.
    – StarCat
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 13:41

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

I finally found the problem with this board. I had a 22pF capacitor between RST and GND on the board I had ordered.

You should not have a capacitor there or it should be 100nF, values such as 22pF or 10nF will cause the board to malfunction and therefore you can't burn the bootloader.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    I have not yet tried the 100nF cap but I soon will try and update the answer.
    – Exclose
    Commented Mar 6, 2021 at 20:59

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