AVR Stick

Programm firmware in your browser...

This offer is for one of my self designed and hand-build AVR USB boards. It is freely programmable and uses an ATxmega128a3u-AU as core IC.

The board is already preprogrammed and assembled, but for shipment reasons without any pinheader soldered in. The AVR has 120KiB free Flash program memory, 8KiB S-RAM, EEPROM 2KiB and a build-in USB full speed transceiver.

- Project page

- Atmel's corresponding product page

- The datasheet

What makes it special?

The special feature of the board is that it requires no drivers or programming software (such as AVRDUDE). The board also provides some GPIO ports. These are routed to the core IC in a specific way, so all technologies on the ATxmega128A3U can be "tasted". Therefore the board is suited for beginners, who want to play around with microcontrollers. But it might also be interesting for more experienced users who want to implement and test their own USB devices.

A bootloader is installed by default, which enumerates the board as a USB stick. By pressing the PROG-button during a RESET, you can enter its bootloader mode. There all the memories in the boards ATxmega128A3U (FUSES, {production-, user-}signature, FLASH and EEPROM) are accessable as files. Changing / overwriting a file then corresponds to the programming of the specific memory. Of course just reading is possible, too! Since the bootloader also offers an update functionality, you always can benefit from all upcoming features.

So for example the board (without having any driver software installed on the computer) can a be programmed directly in the browser. The assembled firmware is then simply downloaded to the dongle.

However the board is not limited to being programmed in the browser. You also can use an AVR compiler to program it in your preferred language with your preferred IDE. To install your firmware on the board, just overwrite FIRMWARE.BIN with the binary file produced by avr-objcopy. If you like using Atmels FLIP (Appnote AVR1916) protocol better for transfering your firmware onto the board: There is an update firmware for exchanging the bootloader provided on the project's website.

Of course there are also ready-to-use examples, which turn the stick into useful tools (like an AVR ISP MKII PDI programmer).

This project is still at the very beginning (even if a lot of stuff already works)

Shipment

I'll ship within Germany as a "Warensendung": 0.9 Euro ($1.25) up to 20g. Shipment to outside of Germany will be 1.50 Euro ($2.10) (also up to 20g).

I am happy to answer questions or to tell additional details (write me just via email, matrixstorm@gmx.de). (But because I sell as a private person this is not mandatory.) Furthermore, I assume no warranty, exchange, liability or the like. Pictures are similar.