avr3

Now you know what tools are required for MCU based development. And you are familiar with their uses. Now time to start some real development.To cover these parts you must have some basic knowledge and tools of electroniccircuit fabrication. So now, let us start with the most important tool the programmer.

Making a programmer.

There are many different types of programmers available on the net. The basic difference is their interface with the PC. Basically, there are three types of programmers.

• Serial Port based
• Parallel Port based
• USB Port based.

Of these serial port based and parallel port based programmers are easy to make in minimal cost. However, the parallel port is little bulky as compared to serial port, I prefer serial one. One of the best programmers I have come across is PonyProg(http://www.lancos.com) Serial Device Programmer it is a package of simple and low cost programmer with easy to use GUI software. I have been using it from long time. So here I will teach you to make PonyProg device programmer.

Note

As the serials and parallel ports are very old technologies they are fast disappearing from PCs. Most laptops are not having them and even desktops are dropping them. Therefore, its no surprise that your PC does not has serial ports. In this case, you have to use USB AVR programmer. See our shop http://shop.extremeelectronics.co.in it’s available for only Rs320 ($6.00). The future is USB.

Things you will need.

S .No	Component	Value	Qty
1	Transistor	BC 547	1
2	Zener Diodes	5.1V	2
3	Resistor	3.3K	2
4	Resistor	10K	1
5	Resistor	15K	1
6	DB9 Female connector		1
7	6 Pin Connector		1
8	General purpose PCB, Wires		-

DB9 connector is which connects to your PCs serial Port. Its looks like this.

A DB9 Connector.

And the 6 Pin connector will make you programmer easy to connect/disconnect from the target board. Now assemble the programmer according to the schematic. Note that the pin numbers are marked on the DB9 connector itself.