Faulty FTDI Basic breakoutboard?

Archive SparkFun Site Questions/Comments
1

I finally decided to see what this whole “arduino” thing is all about so I bought an Arduino Pro Mini and a couple of the PDIP ATmega328s with the arduino bootloader loaded on them. I also bought the 3.3v FTDI Basic serial breakboard thing to program the chips. However, no matter what I do I just can’t get one of the little bastards programmed. Every time I try I get the error:

not in sync: resp = 0x00

protocol error, expect = 0x14, resp = 0x51

I figured it was probably something I was doing wrong with the ATmegas so I tried it on the Pro Mini and it still doesn’t work!

So I started looking at the FTDI programmer and I think it may be the source of my problem. Each pin on the programmer puts out a constant 3.3v no matter what. When I try to program something the logic pins don’t change or anything, they just stay at a constant 3.3v. Are they suppose to be doing this? Do I need pull down resistors in order for this thing to work?

2

Just tried the pull down resistors, same thing. No matter what all pins output 3.3v as soon as I plug it in. :?

3

If you don’t mind me asking, what OS do you have Arduino running on and what version of Arduino are you running? Also have you tried a loopback test with the ftdi?

4

I’m running W7 32 and 64-bit. I got the standalone ATmega328 chips with the bootloader on them working fine but the Arduino Pro still gives me that error no matter what I do. So I guess the FTDI is fine, its the Arduino thats given me problems.

5

If you haven’t already, drop us an email to techsupport@sparkfun.com and we should be able to help you out with the Arduino.