Gen6 Electronics Bootloader

Hello I am currently building my first reprap Prusa at the moment and have just received my electronics.
I have bought a Gen6 board from SiliconImports off Ebay, when I received the item I eagerly plugged it in and tried to load up the firmware with Arduino, but soon found out this was not possible as the was no bootloader loaded on to the 644pv chip.
I am now aware that I need to buy additional hardware to get the Gen6 working, I contacted the seller and he suggested that I use a AVRISP XPII Programer with AVR STUDIO software to load the ATmegaBOOT_644P.hex on to the chip.
He also gave me a list of fuses to burn and advised me that if I burnt the wrong ones I would need a JTAGICE programer to fix it.

My question is....
Does anyone have a good guide to installing a bootloader and has anyone had success with other (cheaper) programmers such as USBTINY and USBASP?
like these:
[tinyurl.com]
[tinyurl.com]

Any help would be appreciated as it seems to be a complicated subject and I do not want to mess it up.
Thanks.

I find myself in the same boat as stanleytanser and would like an answer to this as well. I will likely only use it once and I'd rather get one of the cheaper boot loaders because of the one time use.

Thanks

On how to upload a bootloader, see [reprap.org] . The general procedure should apply for a Gen6 as well.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

From the wiki: "Friendly Gen7 vendors will do these steps for you before shipping, so you don't need a programmer."
Is SiliconImports not friendly? Poor that they do not provide this service when they are obviously shipping a reasonable number of boards.

im in the same boat from scion_imports on ebay and i dont know what to do , where do i buy these programmers , where do i attach it on a gen 6 ??

update
yeah i ordered the programmer now , seams pretty easy to figure it out , and still cheaper than buying gen 6 from other places

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2011 10:48PM by cfxlegion.

hello
i was in the same boat as you when i brought my boards from scion-imports at ebay
but i payed $135 for my board when i got price of the parts i realised that the boards
were good buy even though i had to program cost of parts came to $90
without the PCB
with the avr isp and studio 4 you just plug in the programer to the 6 pin header
making sure the red colored wire is same side as pin 1
select the CONN button and select the avr programer you want to use
and the tiny dose work ok
just choose 644p hex file from sanguino in the bootloader file
press program

then press verify

then press read you will be asked to save this file you must rename it

and thats it bootloader installed
no need to burn fuses or anything else as the studio tutorial says

and the file you saved can be checked with word pad
just list the 644p hex file in word pad and check with the file you saved
the file seems to be at the end of the list so scroll down
you will see numbers and letters this is the hex if both hex and the file you saved are the same
you will know the bootloader is on your chip

i have talked to scion imports as i buy many boards from them
they are very helpful

hi me again

i have just contacted scion imports
as i want another 5 boards
i was told the new boards will be fully programed
with both firmware and bootloader
they have spent a bit of money on set up
as now they have complete set up for programing
they are just a few guys that ordered few boards for themselves
they too like to build machines
so they sold there surplus boards at cost price free freight
now they have bootloaders and firmware
and a full functional test bed for gen 6 electronics
they will program and
test each board for full function
before they release the new boards

they also will except the current boards back and program them free of charge
they will send back your boards to you free also

you just have to contact them and ship board to them and it will be done

yeah they where helpful, i ordered the programmer and all so ill be fine , only thing is canada post is on strike so its kind of messing with my project but hey stuff happens lol

Hmm i dont fully understand, how can $135 + $90= 225 USD be cheaper then buying our original Gen 6?

at the moment GEN6 is 129 euro (special price until end of June for pre-orders batch4), so that is $183.37 ..
And that is including the (expensive) opto's & incl bootloader & firmware.

so am i missing something?

Also we give guarantee/support etc, not sure on other suppliers.

and last but not least our batch4 will have new updates/fixes.. (hardware changes)