LilyPad: I just want that LED to blink for me

Development Boards MicroMod
1

Hi there,

So I got myself a nice shiny new LilyPad Arduino today, and am trying to get it hooked up and running. Obviously I’m posting here, which means it isn’t working out. Forgive me if I’m overly thorough from here on out, but I’ve been at this for several hours, and had several other people attempt it and nobody got it right, so I’m assuming we’re missing something either very small or ridiculously obvious. So, my setup is thus:

LilyPad Arduino–>LilyPad USB Link–>mini USB cable–>PC running Windows XP

I hooked the Arduino the USB Link in the way it was illustrated in the images on SparkFun and Leah Buechley’s website. I can post a picture of the setup if that will help. In the Arduino software, my Board is set to LilyPad, and my com port is set to COM3, which is the port that got created when I plugged LilyPad in the first time. My baud rate is 9600.

When I plug everything in, the LED closest to pin 12 (tab 12? petal 12?) flashes three times quickly, then waits a bit and does it again, and so on. When I hit the reset button, that same triple strobe happens. So far, so good. I started up the Arduino software (the latest version, 10) and opened/compiled the “Blink” sketch. It compiles fine. Then I hit the reset button on the LilyPad and click “Upload to I/O Board” in the Arduino software. The LED near pin/tab/petal 12 continues its standby cycle, and then the software gives me the following error:

avrdude: stk500_initialize(): (a) protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x42

avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1

Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override this check.

Now, I suspect that this “use -F” business is important, but I have no idea what it means or how to use that information to my advantage. Regardless, here are the things I HAVE tried so far:

-switch computers: tried one Vista machine and two XP machines

-switch USB cables: tried two different ones

-uninstall/reinstall drivers: Uninstalled using Device Manager in one round, and using FT Clean in another round. Also tried downloading drivers from the FTDI website and pointing Windows to them, and downloading the executable from FTDI and using that.

-switch baud rate: I tried 9600 (the default) and 19200

-move LilyPad: I’ve had it sitting on my desk, my jeans, and a PSP case (checking to make sure it wasn’t sitting on anything conductive). I also checked for conductive foam or wires or anything else that could be sitting on the board; nothing there.

-restart the machine: Tried restarting at various points in the install process, both with the LilyPad plugged in and without, and after driver installs or not

-Turn stuff off: disabled virus scanner and firewall, and unplugged my USB wireless adapter on the second XP machine

Okay, who has ideas for what I should do next? I’ve got a project due next Wednesday that I would love to use this LilyPad for, but if I can’t get it running soon I’ll have to abandon it. Any ideas/advice/help would be extremely appreciated. I will mail you cookies. Or, um, I don’t know, send you nice jpg’s of cookies, if giving your mailing address to some idiot grad student doesn’t sound like a good idea :slight_smile: Anyway, THANK YOU in advance for your kind advice.

Hugs and Sparkles,

Cranky Grad Student

2

[Here’s an earlier post from someone who had some similar-sounding problems but eventually got stuff worked out.

Going from his post, maybe the problem is that the lilypad and the USB link aren’t sharing a ground?](http://forum.sparkfun.com/viewtopic.php?t=8475)

3

I think that is not the case lilypad and USB connection there is no problem, although I do not know why.

4

i have the same issue its seems:

just got a lilypad arduino and usb adapter from sparkfun. installed everything, comport installed fine (com7). configured arduino software for lilypad, on the correct comport.

no joy trying to upload the basic blink sketch. tried everything in all the hints and help pages on all the sites i could find. uninstalled drivers, reinstalled drivers, unplugged everything. tried diff usb ports, ftclean, changing comport, etc…

curious thing is, i also had a much older regular usb arduino, and i had no trouble uploading to it at all (some months ago, i must admit) - unfortunately i dont have it now to verify its still working. i was also using an older version of the arduino software.

i’m using the latest arduino software (0011). upgraded as the lilypad info said it only worked with 0010 and above.

a few oddities: it shows 19200 baud as the data rate, despite being configured (port and prefs file) as 9600. also the pathing seems to use / instead of \ (im on a win XP box)

anyone got any suggestions? im out of ideas. upload console dump below.

cheers,

ben

Binary sketch size: 1096 bytes (of a 14336 byte maximum)

C:\Program Files\Arduino\arduino-0011\hardware/tools/avr/bin/avrdude -CC:\Program Files\Arduino\arduino-0011\hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf -v -v -v -v -pm168 -cstk500v1 -P\.\COM7 -b19200 -D -Uflash:w:C:\Program Files\Arduino\arduino-0011\examples\Digital\Blink\applet\Blink.hex:i

avrdude: Version 5.4-arduino, compiled on Oct 11 2007 at 19:12:32

Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/

System wide configuration file is “C:\Program Files\Arduino\arduino-0011\hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf”

Using Port : \.\COM7

Using Programmer : stk500v1

Overriding Baud Rate : 19200

avrdude: ser_open(): setting dtr

avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]

avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]

avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]

avrdude: Recv:

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

avrdude: Send: Q [51] [20]

avrdude: Recv:

avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51

5

did a loopback test on the miniUSB board. connected tx to rx, fired up a terminal program and its definately working. so the problem is either in the lilypad, or the arduino software…

6

Are you sure you have the Arduino software set to the Lilypad and the correct serial port?

In the Arduino software, it’s under Tools->Board. Serial port is under Tools->Serial Port.

–Nathan