tanya ismail

In hindsight, the workflow is simple... my process to get there was not so straightforward. Though in the end I was finally able to get it running through Arduino, AtmelStudio7 on Windows 10 and though it was initially working via WinAVR on Windows 7 - I suspect I fried my board before being able to complete uploading. 

First the usbtiny driver from Adafruit needs to be downloaded before it can be recognized in the Device Manager. Plug in the device and when prompted, choose to install driver from the downloaded location on your computer. andrew mao's page was useful: steps: 1 compiler/toolchain to convert code (c) to machine code (hex) according to makefile (make). 2. upload settings 3. upload generated code to memory of microcontroller using fabisp to talk to it.

I followed this guide to set up the IDE arduino environment
set the target microcontroller & programmer in Tools
In the hello file set the target pins & upload

Alternatively AtmelStudio is a similar setup to Arduino. I followed this guide: I copied my code into a new executable project file, added an external tool for the ATtiny microcontroller,

Despite it not completing the workflow, my preferred method was through WinAVR and AVRdude where you can just reference the files through the command line to give it instructions as opposed to having to work in a external environment. A few commands are useful to note:

My next challenge was trying to understand how the communication via code works with the hardware. (urbanhonking) provides a good breakdown of Arduino internals.

Part 2 > Servo > Solar tracking device 

Since my final project is going to be kept outdoors, I wanted it to have an independent power supply for the electronics it houses. In order to maximize solar potential - i wanted to add a solar tracking device that would use light dependent resistors to maneuver 2 servo motors. I was going to integrate a few different electronic systems so started by producing a fabduino so that I had enough pins to feed in. I followed this tutorial and this guide to programming it.

I used the following command to check communication with the device before uploading anything to it. I used the Arduino IDE to program the board. Using the usbtiny as the programmer, first had to add the fabduino board to the list of boards:  this comes up as the Fabduino with Atmega 328p with 20Mhz external clock.
avrdude -c usbtiny -p atmega328p
Once this was confirmed, I uploaded bootloader via the boards.txt file from the tutorial. A flashing light on the board confirmed my success! See the video here! But thats where success ended with this board... and many struggles ensued trying to get it to respond to programs uploaded to it. It also would not communicate without the usbtiny, though it should be able to use the ftdi cable alone. Consultation with many experts still left me stumped, and I even tried the linux workflow using ubuntu on a virtual machine all to no avail yet. More debugging to come - it could be an inconsistency with the crystal resonator, so I will try to remove it and use the internal clock!