What is it?

• This Arduino compatible shield helps you extend any old Arduino board to a nice clean ATtiny programmer.
• This DIY kit comes with all needed parts and programming socket for SOP ICs - There are some SMD parts that can be ordered assembled, check the variations.
• The shield features a ZIF socket that can attach any Atmel IC up to 14 pins – The programmer also includes a free of charge SOP adapter to handle the very popular Attiny13A and Attiny85 SOP8 packages.
• The board has three indicators LEDs for the programming procedure and one additional for testing. There is a toggle switch in the bottom of the board which sets the programming mode (8 or 14 pin IC). Also features two on board buttons that resets the Arduino board and the ATtiny chip separately.
• The shield is following the ArduinoISP tutorial and you should follow the steps to load the firmware needed to the Arduino board before attaching the shield.
• I include in the package detailed information and instruction for using the shield and setting up your board for programing.

Why did you make it?

This shield is a newer version of a previous programmer I designed which was a great solution we built for our own shop for programming ATtiny 25/45/85 Micros - The goal of this shield is to handle all ATtiny Micros up to 14 pin based packages - I'm using several of those as programmers for another project I'm selling and it was a great easy and cheap way to program lots of chips without using expensive dedicated programmers.

What makes it special?

There are a some other programming shields out there that mostly integrates a cable based method to switch between the programming modes - My goal was to avoid all this and make it as simple as flipping a switch no cables and no jumpers. It is a fun project that becomes a tool for future use - The ATtiny chips are very common among makers and this shield supports most of them - I designed it to be easy and doable to assemble even by newbies who just now are learning the trade.