I have an essentially new LV-168, which has been programmed only a few times (for the purpose of the RPM meter that I posted some time ago). I recently had time to pursue some new ideas, but in the first go-around using the Pololu programmer, programming seemed to start off correctly but failed somewhere in the process.
The unit is powered by a recently charged 3.6V NiMH pack and the board Vcc checks out at 5.00 V. There are no motors connected, nor any connections to the I/O lines.
The programmer knows that it should be talking to an ATmega168, but I can’t read the device fuses. I tried various ISP clock frequencies to no effect. I also tried unplugging the LCD display (which showed a line of grey rectangles) but this did not help.
I switched to the AVR-ISP mkII programmer, which depending on what you try, reports various problems such as SCK shorted to ground, wrong pullup on reset line, the ISP connector is the wrong way around, etc. However, both the Pololu and AVR-ISP programmers will properly program the earlier model Orangutan 01a (ATmega168 version).
After the failure I noticed that the blue power LED sometimes goes dark, for no obvious reason.
If power were interrupted somehow during programming, could the board be revived at the factory by parallel programming or some other procedure?
Could this be a case of infant mortality, or is there something else I should check?
Thanks for any advice that anyone can offer!
Cheers, Jim