Begin AVR

[jose]

Hello for alls.
I've been many years with the family PIC with ICD3 (and works great) and I want to start with the family from ATMEL. I would like to buy a tool to program and debug the programs that can be developed, (I thought between AVR dragon, JTAGICE3 or JTAGICE mkII-CN (MCuzone).)
I have been visiting many forums and I can not convince me, since comment:
 AVR DRAGON: slow and unreliable in fragile electrically
 JTAGICE3: People have many problems to get it to work correctly.
 JTAGICE mkii - CN: people, seems to be happy with the development of Mcuzone.

 I would like to begin, I would like something that did not give me headaches and that also serve me as a programmer and debugger.Can someone give me some recommendations?
 Would recommend the software to get started?

Thanks

[micropcb]

You will find some information at

http://www.sonsivri.to/forum/index.php?topic=11015.0

and

http://www.sonsivri.to/forum/index.php?topic=6796.0

Hope it helps.

[hate]

AVR DRAGON: slow and unreliable in fragile electrically

I don't think that is entirely true. I have been using it with 'avarice' for years and didn't experience a single problem related to the 'dragon' itself. You can even debug your avr code with it almost as fast as you can debug your desktop programs (in my experience). There is also the fact that your debugging environment and type effects your debugging speed. That might be source of the slowness.

I've never burned a dragon but I was also worried that it was fragile when I first started with it so I added extra buffering to it. It's called 'dragonhide', link below. I think it is safer this way.
http://www.aplomb.nl/TechStuff/Dragon/Dragon.html

I can't comment on the other official debuggers as I've never used them but I don't advice a hand made programmer in case you plan on doing serious debugging as only official programmers support 'debugwire'.

[h0nk]

I would not start with AVR in these days.

Dont get me wrong.
I got my first STK200 approx 20 years ago. 10 years later an STK500 and a Dragon.
I spent a lot of time with AVR's.


At the low end i use today PIC12 and PIC16 Midrange and Extended Midrange Devices.

If more processing power is needed i would recommend TI's MSP430 or Renesas M16/R8.
Both are 16 bit cores. If You need sophisticated analog IO, take a look at Silabs or Analog Devices.

When it comes to Ethernet, USB or CAN, You should consider the STM32-series from ST or
the new TIVA's from TI which incorporate even the Ethernet-PHY.
These devices are 32 bit devices. Some devices include floating point maths.

For really fast Signal Processing i use TIs TMS320C54/55/28 devices.
A TMS320C5502 can run at 300 MHz internal clock.
Some devices allow You to use the internal DSP resources (like RAM) as part of Your design.
Some can produce PWM with a resolution of 150 ps.
Some can sample analog signals with 12 bit at 12,5 MSPS.

All of my listed devices have easy access to debugging via JTAG/ICD via cheap adapters (FTDI2232, ST-Link, U/J-Link-Clones).

As You see, there is no need for AVR's for me.
Atmel had missed the chance to simplify things like JTAG and to develop a better upgrade path then XMega.
They simply sell there old sh.t.


If You interested in a really cheap JTAG for (old) AVRs, look for Ebay Item# 160826021353.
But: "Supported AVR Studio Version: AVR Studio 4.18 or earlier."


Best Regards

P.S.: My first Dragon went dead almost immediately, when i tried to probe the temperature of power supply devices with my finger.

[th_sak]

Hi, I suggest you to buy JTAGICE 3. I use it every day at work for two years now and I never had a single problem with that. You have to install ATMEL Studio 6.xx in order to update it's firmware and also install the appropriate drivers for windows. I have also used DRAGON, JTAGICE MKII and AVR ONE, but I like the most JTAGICE 3 and that's why I use it for every day debugging. I think that 99$ for an original ATMEL debugger is a very good price.

[one]

HI, h0nk

you didn't mention the price of the IDE's for the micro you enumerated.
I don't know any free or low cost IDE for MSP430 or ST, you have to stick to commercial compilers like IAR, which is 3000€ of investment. For AVR you have GCC included for free in AVRstudio, or you could buy the CodeVisionAVR or some other low cost compiler.
I have an AVR Dragon and is still alive. I will put the finger on the power supply with the next occasion. The reason the circuits are burnt is not usually their fragility, but the misuse.
I read the reason for Dragon death when touching the power area is related to "high" voltage stabilisation. In this case, the solution is boxing the Dragon.

It is right anyway that are a lot of more powerful devices nowadays and if one is giving 600$ for AVRONE maybe is giving also the money for an expensive compiler.

[h0nk]

Hello one,

there are GCC-ports for the MSP430/TI Tiva and the ST's STM32 also.
If You dont like Makefiles, You can use eclipse as IDE.

When You bought an (TMS320-)Eval Kit from TI, You got an almost unlimited development
environment (Code Composer) for free. The only "official" limit was, that only the
XDS100 JTAG-adapter of the eval kit was supported.
No code limit, no flash limit and no debug limit.
On special events You could buy these kits at half the price for $10-$25.

The additional bonus was, well hidden, that this IDE also supports the other controller
families from TI and there debugging adapters. You were able to write programs
and could debug the MSP430 and TI's Stellaris (ARM Cortex M3) with their JTAG-adapters.
I dont know if this works at the moment since i have a full license now.

This, i think, is a good support from a manufacturer. Professional development tools that
everyone can afford.

ST has at least cheap hardware offers for development boards (JTAG as ST-Link included).
But You have to use GCC if You want it strictly free.

And Atmel?
Not much. If its cheap, its mostly crap.
Even basic JTAG-adapters should include some form of protection.
In early days Atmel had even locked the Dragon to the "smaller" devices.
I would not pay $$$ for Atmel anymore.

BTW: You should not harm Your Dragon.
There was an design flaw in the Dragon which ruined the supply circuit almost immediately
when someone touched it. May be they have changed this in the mean time.
I dont know and i would suggest not to try it.


Best Regards

[pablo2048]

HI, h0nk

you didn't mention the price of the IDE's for the micro you enumerated.
I don't know any free or low cost IDE for MSP430 or ST, you have to stick to commercial compilers like IAR, which is 3000€ of investment. For AVR you have GCC included for free in AVRstudio, or you could buy the CodeVisionAVR or some other low cost compiler.
I have an AVR Dragon and is still alive. I will put the finger on the power supply with the next occasion. The reason the circuits are burnt is not usually their fragility, but the misuse.
I read the reason for Dragon death when touching the power area is related to "high" voltage stabilisation. In this case, the solution is boxing the Dragon.

It is right anyway that are a lot of more powerful devices nowadays and if one is giving 600$ for AVRONE maybe is giving also the money for an expensive compiler.

Just try emblocks... I'm using it with STM32 and it has support for MSP430 (MSPGCC)...

[jose]

@h0nk
  Hello, i buyed the  JTAG for  AVRs, in Ebay( Item# 160826021353) , but i dodn´t know set up in AVR STUDIO 4.18.built 716.
I installed the drivers , but what device i have to select in the AVR Studio , which is the procedure?? as I connect the hardware to the board.
Thanks , and sorry for my bad enghish

[h0nk]

Hello Jose,

i guess its a JTAGICE-clone with a USB-SERIAL-Adapter (PL2303) integrated.

With the adapter attached, take a look in the device manager for the port number (COM1 to COM32) of this serial adapter.
This is under the 'advanced option' tab.
There must be also a matching option in the configuration section of AVR Studio for the debugging devices.
You have to enter this serial port number to configure JTAGICE for use with AVR Studio.

Best Regards

[bigtoy]

Like h0nk said, I wouldn't start with AVR either. I've done many AVR projects, but over the last few years these processors have been left behind by the low-cost ARM chips. Even Atmel has finally realized it, releasing their own Cortex-M0 and M3 based chips. And Arduino is also moving to ARM. For price/performance the AVRs are being left long behind.

Still, if you insist, there is a wealth of great information at http://www.avrfreaks.net