I spent Thursday & Friday evenings wiring up enough of the board to flash some LEDs, then set out to program it… Without success

After ripping apart the board, replacing the uC, and checking every single connection with a 10x Loupe, i turned to google, and found that the atmega128 is programmed differently to the other AVRs i’ve used, it has it’s own PDI and PDO pins connected to the first USART for uploading the program.

I wish someone had told me that before i bought the board!

Luckily, i had brought the USART pins out to their own header on the board, so after wiring up a programming adaptor, i was finally able to get some life!

After waiting for some new parts to arrive ( 1206 resistors dont fit on 0805 pads :/ )  I’ve sat down to do some assembly tonight.  Hopefully i’ll  manage to get it lighting those LEDs this week.

Got into work this morning after two weeks sunning myself in Menorca to find my boards have arrived!

I’ll have to make a start at populating them tonight, see if i can’t get it flashing some lights or something for UKMM 08!

I’ve just sent off the board design for R2, 5 boards should arrive in a couple of weeks!

Hopefully i’ll be able to get the regulator all the LEDs and the processor working for the end of June, so i have something to show off at UKMM 2008!

Here are some renders i’ve exported from Gerbv Gerber Viewer, looking good!

Got the AVR code for the stepper motor drivers working today, and the Voltage regulation for running from a battery, at this rate, I’ll have the mouse moving by wednesday / thursday