Gen 7 electronics first look

Hello all, I like idea about single board and possibility to reproduce it
better then Gen 6, from just firs look I would recommend to have
motor connectors identical for all generations of electronics. It will much easy to
interchange boards on the same testing printer.

I received my kits (Big thank you to Markus) and finish to build one. How I can check if boot loader was loaded
to ATMEGA chip? If it wasn't would you recommend
Any programmers for it, I have also Gen 6 board with no boot loader,
Is there are any universal programmers for boot loaders working with
Mostly ATMEGA chips?
I manage connect ATX power supply (I had to make small switch attached based on this link below

[www.instructables.com]

and now I have to solid green Led In right bottom corner. Also I would like to get more info or tutorials
About connecting serial interface to PC, I found pins layout, please see file attached.
I think, It would be a good idea to update WIKI with little diagram like
Pin 1-2 of serial connector of the Gen7 board go to Pin 9 of DB9 connector.
I am still learning and any help will be appreciated.

Best regards,

You can check whether the bootloader is programmed in by emailing the guy you purchased the kit from or you can

1. install arduino software

2. install gen7 support as per the wiki

3. set arduino to the version of gen7 you have

4. try to upload a sample sketch or firmware to the board. (of course you'll need the usb-serial cable and driver installed)

You'll need to do this eventually anyway in order to tune your firmware to your machine.

If the bootloader isn't programmed in you can find a bunch of different programmers. Anything that works for arduino should work for gen7. I started by trying the dirt cheap parallel programming circuit that can be found all over the net, it didn't work for me so I bought a USBTiny avr programmer like this one [cgi.ebay.com]

It worked for the bootloader and allowed me to get started testing the arduino software but I couldn't upload large sketches like the firmware. I then found out that I had some cold solder joints on the gen7 board, so that may have been the problem with my original attempts with the cheap parallel cable programmer. So it may work for you.

For the serial interface, everything is sort of set up for the arduino style usb-serial cable. A direct serial connection would need a serial to ttl voltage level converter if I am not mistaken (MAX 232), though I have a usb-serial cable so I haven't tried the direct connection route.

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from just firs look I would recommend to have motor connectors identical for all generations of electronics.

That's exactly what Gen7 has in mind, and the connectors match those of Gen3 electronics. RAMPS and Sanguinololu seem to have settled for smaller connectors, so Gen7 will perhaps change that in the future, too.

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How I can check if boot loader was loaded to ATMEGA chip?

If it's a kit from me, there's a small test program uploaded already. Connect via the serial line, fire up the Arduino IDE and select Menu -> Tools -> Serial Console. Select 9600 baud and you should receive '0's at a rate of one 0 per second.

Quote

now I have to solid green Led In right bottom corner.

One green light is sufficient to talk to the ATmega and upload firmware. The other green LED will light up as the power supply turns on, which is done by the firmware. Move a motor or turn the heater on, and the power supply will spring to life.


Bryanandaimee explained the other parts already nicely, connecting to a PC serial line is just as complicated as connecting to USB.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY