(Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/04/day-4-thing-4-aduino-adaboot-programmer/)
I was using the programming half of a a bulky prototype that I have been working on to program one of the mice from Day 1 and I looked at the pile hanging precariously off of the coffe table and thought to myself.
“I need to just build one of these. “
So I did.
The programmer is based on the Auto-Reset Hack and the AdaBoot bootloader. The reset is pulled by putting a capacitor on the DTR line of the serial interface which is also the bootloader interface. Most people put the cap on the Arduino but I put it on the programmer (where it belongs). This programmer was built using the ftdi ft232rl breakout board sold by sparkfun. I had to trim it down to get it to fit in the pretty blue box i bought at Tap Plastics. The chip out of the box presents two of its 4 gpio (general pourpose i/o) pins to indicate when serial is being sent and recieved. I wired a pair of very bright leds that I had to them and then tried to pipe the light to the corners using some translucent plastic tubes and hot glue. It looks pretty cool!
As preparation for moving out of my storage space I went to IKEA with my g/f and spent 100 that I didn’t really have. I got the idea that I could make them cheaper. I went to the hardware store and got an 8 foot section of drywall corner for $1.50. I originally wanted to do boxes that were “compatible” but realized that I had scrap that allowed me to build the main part of the box with only 2 cuts. (this is important as I only have a scroll saw) I was going to build a second box but the blade wandered and broke so I called it a day.
