Hobbyist AVR Programmer

[westfw]

Atmel-ICE does support debugging, but I think the Dragon may still be cheaper?

The "Atmel ICE Basic" (which comes with fewer cables/adaptors) is about $50 - pretty much exactly the same prices as the Dragon, but the Atmel ICE also talks to the ARM chips.

[janoc]

Dragon supports parallel high voltage programming in a socket (put a ZIF socket on the board!) which Atmel ICE doesn't. It also works with open source tools - may or may not matter for the OP, but if using anything else than Windows it could be important. Atmel ICE is pretty much Windows/Atmel Studio only.

So I would say it comes down to what is more useful for the poster. The tools are not completely equivalent, despite comparable price.

[westfw]

Does dragon do HV Serial programming as well?  That's one thing I especially miss (when using low pin-count chips.)

[janoc]

Does dragon do HV Serial programming as well?  That's one thing I especially miss (when using low pin-count chips.)

Yup, it does do HVSP.

[rstofer]

A mailable program loader.  Where have I seen that before?  Oh, sure, on my Press Monitors...
That's a pretty cool gadget.  When I get back to AVRs, I'll need to pick one up.

[macboy]

The MiniPro TL866A supports high voltage programming either ICSP or in the 40-pin ZIF socket. (The TL866CS does not have the ICSP header but this is a problem easily solved). It supports at least ATMega and ATTiny, but you will need to check if you other specific ones in mind. I do not suggest it is the best overall solution here but I mention it for the high voltage programming capability which has been noted as lacking in many other tools.  The TL866 is an affordable universal programmer that supports many types of devices, I find it indispensable. It might be worth having in addition to another ICSP/debugger, especially if that can't do HV programming.

[janoc]

The MiniPro TL866A supports high voltage programming either ICSP or in the 40-pin ZIF socket. (The TL866CS does not have the ICSP header but this is a problem easily solved). It supports at least ATMega and ATTiny, but you will need to check if you other specific ones in mind. I do not suggest it is the best overall solution here but I mention it for the high voltage programming capability which has been noted as lacking in many other tools.  The TL866 is an affordable universal programmer that supports many types of devices, I find it indispensable. It might be worth having in addition to another ICSP/debugger, especially if that can't do HV programming.

 

Yup. I use it more often than my Dragon, because having to wire up the jumpers for the DUT ZIF socket on the Dragon every time is a serious pain.

Sadly the MiniPro SW is only for Windows. There is some OSS tool for it too, but it is not fully feature-equivalent, I believe. So if you have avrdude programming instructions (fuses etc), it can take a bit of futzing to translate it to the correct settings in the MiniPro sw.

J.

[donotdespisethesnake]

I made an adapter to convert its silly 50mil headers to standard 100mil ones:

Alan, did you publish your design anywhere? Alternatively, does anyone happen to know the spacing between the two connectors, I couldn't find this info in the Atmel ICE documentation.

I published a KiCad version of the adapter board from https://atoomnet.net/atmel-ice-header-adapter/ on my github https://github.com/bobc/Atmel-ICE-Header-Adapter

[alank2]

Hi,

Gerbers here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~alank2/atmelice.zip

Thanks!

Alan

[coromonadalix]

avrdudess with avrdude does a great job with an genuine Stk500, or Stk500 clone, or better with an Avr Dragon

I had an avr Dragon and made some small adapters boards for the headers configurations, and soldered and zif socket on it ...

Now, almost all my needs are solved with an Elnec Beeprog programmer ...