Pololu USB AVR Programmer

I do like this little programmer a lot, the footprint is so small that you can even get into the tightest spaces to reprogram a AVR chip. For that , and the ease of use i give it 5 Stars. The only caveat, which isn't enough for me to downgrade my rating, is that it does not seem to work with Atmel/Microchip studio. At least in my trial i could not get it to get recognized. However it does work fine with any software thats using the STK500 Serial protocol. (AVRdude and the like)

I bought this AVR programmer to use with the Arduino IDE to program Atmega 328p and Atmega 32U4 boards (sans bootloaders) via the ICSP ports. I use it from Ubuntu 12.04 Linux. The only configuration needed was to add the relevant "avrispv2" lines to Arduino's programmers.txt file (documented on Pololu's website).I ran into a hiccup where I didn't realize the Pololu programmer does not supply the 5V power to the circuit via the VDD line (the previous AVR programmer I was using had this feature.) No big deal, it just caught me off guard the first time I tried to use it.

Many AVR programmers have a switch or jumper enabling you to provide power to the chip you're programming, but this one doesn't. Since I needed that capability, I had to solder in a jumper myself from the USB power. Since I did that, it works fine, but if I had known in advance, I would have purchased a different brand.

I received the product promptly plugged in the required cables and NOTHING. After calling the 800 number on the Pololu website I was informed that sometimes the included cable doesn't work!The programmer itself works great after supplying your own cable and downloading the drivers from the company website. Instructions are available to allow this programmer to work from within the Arduino software (if that is your IDE).PROS:Works great to program AVRsCONS:Need to supply own **USB** cable, the cable that came with the board didn't work. I contacted support, and they instructed me to supply my own cable.Drivers Windows only (And no mention of the drivers anywhere, you have to go looking for them.)

I had used one that someone else set up. When I bought my own I learned just how much work went into getting it to function. The directions are terrible and there is no product support. Don't buy this unless you already know how to use it or you know someone who does that can help you.

No cable problems for me. I installed drivers from the web site and updated the firmware per instructions in the Pololu USB AVR Programmers Users Guide (also on the web site). The ISP interface portion works just fine for an ATmega328P and AVR Studio 5 (Win7 & WinXP).Have not used the TTL serial port portion yet but that is one of the primary reasons I purchased this particular programmer.

This AVR programmer is about 1/2 the cost of the Atmel programmerfrom Digikey. I'm using the device with avrdude running on anUbuntu Linux machine; my target device is an Arduino Mega (at1280 chip).For me, the whole setup was basically plugand go. It was my first time using avrdude, so I had to resortto reading a couple pages of the user manual available onthe Pololu site. Vendor was quick to ship also - packagearrived a day before expected. So overall, I would recommendboth the Pololu programmer, and the Amazon vendor (Robot Simple Co).

Definitely worth buying. Can use to debug via serial terminal and program my MCU all in one. At school I rented an MKII(worth 40$) and an FTDI chip(15$). I wanted to still program with these components, but not actually have to buy them. Good thing I found this and saved!

Treiber installieren (Windows 7), Programmierumgebung anpassen, einstecken läuft!!!Lieferumfang wie beschrieben auch Lieferzeit war auch OK.Dokumentation gefunden nur auf English.