Blink

01_atmega

The ATMEGA chip

The ATMEGA microcontroller is a black oblong with numbers printed on it, and 28 silver legs, looking a bit like an insect. It is the computer at the heart of a Shrimp, and has inputs and outputs – sensing or triggering things out there in the world.

Check the legs don’t splay out too much. It can break the legs if you force the chip in. If the legs are not at right angles to the chip, ease them into position by gently pressing one side of the chip against the table top (14 pins at a time). Check the pins are lined up well on the correct holes before pushing down softly to slide them in, then finally push down hard to ensure a good connection.

Carefully align the chip, checking the half-moon shape is at the top, with two empty breadboard rows above the chip. Check the legs are cleanly aligned with the breadboard below. Once the legs are all aligned, press down until the chip slides fully into the board (about 3mm movement).

19 Responses

  1. Colton
    Colton October 23, 2013 at 1:22 am | | Reply

    This device is so awesome it solved all of my problems of finding an affordable development board and I plan on making one. I found this site on Hack-A-Day!

  2. gjs
    gjs November 10, 2013 at 12:04 pm | | Reply

    does the crystal not need any power?

  3. Walt
    Walt November 10, 2013 at 6:23 pm | | Reply

    What should the “Arduino Programmer” be set to? I see options: AVR ISP, AVRISP mkII, USBtinyISP, USBasp, Parallel Programmer & Arduino as ISP.

  4. femi
    femi November 24, 2013 at 9:16 pm | | Reply

    avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00

    I keep getting the above error at step 12 any tips?

    1. efficacy
      efficacy January 20, 2014 at 1:52 pm | | Reply

      I got this, and checked my circuit several times, but everything seemed OK. Then I checked the AVR chip itself. I had bought my own components and inadvertently ordered a chip without a “bootloader”, so the Arduino IDE did not recognize it as a Uno.

      If this is your problem, then its easy enough (although often a bit more costly) to get the chip pre-programmed with the bootloader, or you can go the hacker route and build your own ISP (bootloader programmer). I followed the instructions at http://learn.adafruit.com/arduino-tips-tricks-and-techniques/arduinoisp and can now buy the cheaper, unprogrammed AVR chips in bulk and put whatever bootloader I like,

  5. Blink | Physical Computing | Scoop.it
    Blink | Physical Computing | Scoop.it December 16, 2013 at 3:48 pm |

    […] Build a Shrimp, in this step-by-step, illustrated guide, it shows you how to build an Arduino-compatible Shrimp from scratch, and upload your first code to control it.  […]

  6. Building my own Arduino: shrimp and ArduinoISP | Raspberry Alpha Omega

    […] started building my shrimp by gathering the components and following the steps in the "blink" example. This takes you all the way through building a shrimp on a breadboard, programming it and running […]

  7. Martin
    Martin May 10, 2014 at 4:33 pm | | Reply

    I have got to step 12 of blink and haven’t managed to get it blinking. I’m fairly certain everything is wired correctly and all the components are in the right place.

    I have downloaded the CP2102 installers for windows 8 from your website.

    When I tried to upload the blink programme from Arduino it says ‘Serial port “com 1″ not found.’ I checked the serial port in ‘tools’ but it was greyed out and I can’t select it.

    I may be wrong but I think that somehow I haven’t installed the drivers properly. I checked the USB in my PCs device manager and tried to update the device driver, but when I browsed for it in my computer it says it can’t find the driver software.

    Do you have any suggestions about what I’m doing wrong?

  8. onewolfmusic
    onewolfmusic June 25, 2014 at 11:24 am | | Reply

    Hi there, just got my USB to serial through, but it doesn’t have a DTR pin. It does however have an RST, being a total noob I thought I’d ask – have a bought the wrong adapter, or will this one work?

    Thanks

    Ross

  9. marl
    marl August 1, 2014 at 6:23 am | | Reply

    So, what do I do if I didn’t buy a pre- bootloaded atmega 328p?

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