A-Star not having enough time on bootloader mode

Hello Pololu,

I just unpacked an A-Star microcontroller and I have been investigating why is not working properly. The first thing I noticed was I couldn’t load an sketch from Arduino, I already installed everything but it didn’t work. Then I found your reviving documentation section and I followed: pololu.com/docs/0J61/8

I was able to upload a sketch once while using the reset method, but then again it was the same. As I read the information it said the Arduino goes into bootloader mode for 8 seconds, but I have count the seconds for mine while the LED fades in and out and it is about 4 second, so there is not enough time for the sketch to be uploaded on the bootloader mode.

Any ideas to solve this?, Will I have to upload the bootloader again to the A-Start?

Thanks for your comments,

Hello.

I am sorry you are having problems using your A-Star. What operating system are you running on your computer? Which version of the Arduino IDE are you using? What happens when you try to load a sketch from the Arduino IDE with the normal procedure? Do you get an error? If so, could you post the full error message?

- Jeremy

Hello Jeremy,

I’m using Windows 7 64 bits, my Arduino version is the 1.0.5.

I’m attaching an image of the verbose output of the uploader.

The board goes into bootloader mode, the led fades differente and faster, but there is not enough time to upload the sketch,

Thanks for your help,


Have you tried rebooting your computer? If not, could you see if rebooting your computer helps? We have seen usbser.sys get messed up sometimes, and it might be affecting COM26 in some weird way. If that does not work, could you try programming the A-Star using a different computer and usb cable?

- Jeremy