Programming an ATmega168 using SparkFun’s FTDI Basic Breakout. This guide works for other FT232R-based devices as well.

First, install the dependencies. On Ubuntu 10.04, this should take care of all of them:

sudo apt-get install patch build-essential libreadline-dev libncurses-dev libusb-dev libftdi-dev automake autoconf
sudo apt-get build-dep avrdude avrdude-doc

Next, create a working directory for the build and cd into it:

mkdir avrdude
cd avrdude

Now download the D2xx driver from FTDI. Only download the one that corresponds to your OS (either 64 bit or 32 bit).

# For 64-bit:
wget http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX/Linux/libftd2xx0.4.16_x86_64.tar.gz
# For 32-bit:
wget http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX/Linux/libftd2xx0.4.16.tar.gz

Download AVRDUDE and the FTDI bitbang patches:

wget http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases-noredirect/avrdude/avrdude-5.10.tar.gz
for i in 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0; do wget -O patch-$i.diff http://savannah.nongnu.org/patch/download.php?file_id=1851$i; done

Extract everything, put the drivers into place, and apply the patches:

tar xzf avrdude-5.10.tar.gz
tar xzf libftd2xx*.tar.gz
cd avrdude-5.10
for file in ../patch-*.diff; do patch -p0 < $file; done
cp ../libftd2xx*/static_lib/* .
cp ../libftd2xx*/*.h .
cp ../libftd2xx*/*.cfg .

Configure and compile AVRDUDE.

./configure CFLAGS="-g -O2 -DSUPPORT_FT245R" LIBS="./libftd2xx.a.0.4.16 -lpthread"
make

If you’re using SparkFun’s FTDI Basic Breakout board, you can use the following to update your AVRDUDE configuration. If you’re using some other FTDI breakout board, you’ll need to modify the miso, sck, mosi, and reset options. FTDI has a listing of which bits correspond to which pins on page 1 of the bit-bang mode datasheet.

echo '
programmer
  id    = "ftdi";
  desc  = "SparkFun FTDI Basic Breakout";
  type  = ft245r;
  miso  = 1;  # RXD
  sck   = 3;  # CTS
  mosi  = 0;  # TXD
  reset = 4;  # DTR
;' >> avrdude.conf;

If you’re using SparkFun’s FTDI Basic Breakout, you can make your connections as follows. Otherwise, make your connections according to the pins you chose in the previous step (more details in my previous post on the subject).

FTDI -> MCU (ATmega168 PDIP pin)
--------------------------------
DTR -> RESET (1)
RXI -> MISO (18)
TXO -> MOSI (17)
5V -> VCC (7 & 20)
CTS -> SCK (19)
GND -> GND (8 & 22)

Now try it out to make sure everything worked. On Ubuntu, sudo is required because of the default permissions applied to USB devices. The `-B 1` option sets the programming speed to the lowest possible. You can omit that option if your AVR is clocked higher than 8MHz. If this runs successfully, your AVR’s high fuse byte should be printed to the terminal in hexadecimal.

sudo ./avrdude -C avrdude.conf -c ftdi -p m168 -P ft0 -U hfuse:r:-:h -B 1

If everything worked well, you can now install AVRDUDE.

# If you're using Ubuntu, you can use checkinstall to build a .deb package and install it:
sudo checkinstall
# Otherwise, just use `make install`:
sudo make install

You should now be able to use AVRDUDE without specifying a configuration file:

sudo avrdude -c ftdi -p m168 -P ft0 -U hfuse:r:-:h -B 1

We ordered the electronics for the guitar from SparkFun Electronics and Digi-Key. When the project is over, I plan to add up the total cost and post a bill of materials. I suspect it will total to around $100.

Today we tested out the 4.3″ touchpad from SparkFun using an Arduino. I have just finished setting up an ATmega328P on a breadboard and got a basic blink program running. The final product will be running on a plain AVR without the Arduino libraries/bootloader.

One problem I ran into using my FTDI programmer was the clock rate. A fresh ATmega328P comes running at 1 MHz, significantly lower than the default 16 MHz on Arduino-prepared ATmegas. As a result, I kept getting errors like this:

david@second:~$ avrdude -c ftdi -p atmega168 -P ft0
avrdude: BitBang OK 
avrdude: pin assign miso 1 sck 3 mosi 0 reset 4
avrdude: drain OK 
 
 ft245r:  bitclk 230400 -> ft baud 115200
avrdude: ft245r_program_enable: failed
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.
 
 
avrdude done.  Thank you.

Eventually I found AVRDUDE’s -B option. It adjusts the clock rate that’s fed into the SCK pin on the AVR. I found that a value of -B 76800 works well, but if you’re running into this problem, I recommend starting with -B 1 and going up until it stops working. To be explicit, this is the command that I found works:

david@second:~$ avrdude -c ftdi -p atmega168 -P ft0 -B 76800

Here’s an image to demonstrate the problem (click to enlarge):

On Ubuntu, there’s a package called wacom-tools that includes a configuration utility named xsetwacom. The xsetwacom utility has a couple parameters to help against noise: RawSample and Suppress. RawSample allows you to adjust the number of samples taken from the tablet before the coordinates are committed to the mouse pointer on screen. Suppress prevents the mouse pointer from moving unless it has been moved by a given amount. So, all you need to do is tune those parameters to something that works well for your setup. I found the following to be acceptable:

xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 4x5" RawSample 9
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 4x5" Suppress 10

Note that those commands are specifically for the Wacom BambooFun 4×5 tablet. You will probably need to replace that part with something else. You can find out what you should replace it with by executing this command and looking over its output:

xidump --list

Now, I wanted these commands to be run automatically every time I logged in, so I created a small script at ~/.local/bin/wacom_init and put the following in it:

#!/bin/sh
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 4x5" RawSample 9
xsetwacom set "Wacom BambooFun 4x5" Suppress 10

Finally, I went in my menu to System > Preferences > Startup Applications and created an entry to automatically run the command /home/david/.local/bin/wacom_init.

All done!

Update 2009-12-25: these instructions work on both 9.10 Karmic and 9.04 Jaunty.

1. Install all dependencies:

   sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre gcc-avr avr-libc ia32-libs librxtx-java

2. Download 32-bit version of Arduino 0017: [download]
3. Extract it and navigate to the lib/ directory. Delete RXTXcomm.jar and librxtxSerial.so.
4. Go back to the main directory and open the arduino script in a text editor. Replace its contents with:

   #!/bin/sh
    
   APPDIR="$(dirname -- "${0}")"
    
   for LIB in \
       java/lib/rt.jar \
       java/lib/tools.jar \
       lib/*.jar \
       ;
   do
       CLASSPATH="${CLASSPATH}:${APPDIR}/${LIB}:/usr/share/java/RXTXcomm.jar"
   done
   export CLASSPATH
    
   LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:`pwd`/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
   export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
    
   export PATH="${APPDIR}/java/bin:${PATH}"
    
   java -Dswing.defaultlaf=com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel processing.app.Base

---

Note:
The Serial Monitor in the Arduino IDE doesn’t work. As a replacement, you can install screen with:

sudo apt-get install screen

To start screen for use with an Arduino, run this command:

screen /dev/ttyUSB0 9600

Replace /dev/ttyUSB0 with the location of your serial port and 9600 with the baud rate you’re using.

To quit screen, press Ctrl-a then press k. You must quit screen before you can upload a program via the Arduino IDE.

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