"Bricked" Xmega

AndersL · Joined: 25 Jan 2010 Posts: 93 Location: Kragerø,Norway

Hi all,
I've recently bought the XMEGA-A1 XPLAINED board.
The plan was to take advantage of the onboard sram and USB/serial connection via UC3B1256 chip and program the xmega with bascom bootloader.
In the process of isolating the xmega PDI from the UC3B chip and testing, I probably messed up fuse settings Rolling Eyes

I'm sure I have a clean PDI interface to the Xmega now, but it have turned into a brick (no response)
From searching the internet it seems to be no way to "brick" a xmega, but here i am!
BOD settings higher then VCC seems to one thing users are uncertain about could "brick" a xmega.

Anyone came across this? Will Jtag programming fix the problem?

W4GNS · Joined: 03 Dec 2009 Posts: 11 Location: (Virginia)

I'm curious, did you solve this problem ?

AndersL · Joined: 25 Jan 2010 Posts: 93 Location: Kragerø,Norway

I gave up on my last XPLAINED board, and now I’ve bought a new one since there are a few
interesting samples that uses the SDRAM this board offer.
My problem now seems to be the same as last time:

I connect the board usb connector to my pc for powering.
My AVRISP MK2 is connected through an adapter to the board JTAG/PDI connector.
The adapter I’ve made have been checked for miss wiring and wires are < 1cm.
When I hit Read Signature in avr studio it will read the signature correctly every second time and every second time the read will fail.
This warns me that a write to flash would potentially be an disaster due to the unstable PDI read/write.
My last board ended up dead, so if this one also ends up there I might consider starting knitting instead Rolling Eyes

I know my mk2 is working ok. If I exchange the XPLAINED board with another kind of xmega board
it will read signature every time and program 100% ok.

Does anybody have an idea of what’s wrong?

Flyby123 · Joined: 05 Jul 2008 Posts: 73

Anders,

The USB converter has issues, see this: http://blog.frankvh.com/2009/11/15/atmel-xplain-board/

I tried that 10K mod but did not work.

I removed the USB IC altogether , I then made an adapter cable from MKII to JTAG header using only GND/VCC/CLK and DATA pins (silk text on topside of JTAG connector), this works.

A little OT, are you working with bootloader and RFM22B?

Jim

AndersL · Joined: 25 Jan 2010 Posts: 93 Location: Kragerø,Norway

Hi,
Thanks for your answer Jim.
I’ve noticed that link, but they are talking about the XPLAIN board (the green one)
My board is the newest one named XPLAINED (the bleu one) with a AT32UC3R1256 chip
for USB comm.
My PDI adapter is made like yours with GND/VCC/CLK and DATA.
My intention was to program the xmega with Bascom bootloader (erase the preprogrammed bootloader) and use the AT32UC3R1256 connection as a usb cdc link.
This means that I will not use FLIP etc to load new code into the xmega, just plain bascom bootloader.
From posts with sample code using the XPLAINED board it must be other people here that has
done just that? With success? Maybe other users use the FLIP method ?

Regd. RFM22B: yes I'm into that also from time to time Smile

AndersL · Joined: 25 Jan 2010 Posts: 93 Location: Kragerø,Norway

Just came across this: http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=printview&t=118029&start=0

Last entry here gives the answer I guess Very Happy

AndersL · Joined: 25 Jan 2010 Posts: 93 Location: Kragerø,Norway

Jim,
I probably misunderstood you regarding RFM/bottloader.
Dave have made a bootloader for RFM12B, but I haven't tested it yet.
It probably works perfect as Dave knows the RFM's very well Smile

AndersL · Joined: 25 Jan 2010 Posts: 93 Location: Kragerø,Norway

I've tested the procedure an it really works!
First time running the avrdude scipt failed(as usuall), the second one managed to write the fuse.
This however killed the Jungo (mongo) driver for avr studio/bascom.
A unistall of lib-usb and jungo,reinstall/upgrade of AVR studio to 5.1 and reinstall (speciall way) jungo driver
and lib-usb filter driver made studio/bascom work again.
Anyhow, I now have a 100% MK2 responcive XPLAINED board. Just need to program mcs bootloader..
and test it with the cdc.
As a plus, this has learned me a lot about lib-usb/Jungo driver problems.