AVR Dragon wiring alternative

posted Sep 26th 2009 9:41am by
filed under: tool hacks

dragon_jumper_board

We love our AVR Dragon programmer. It is a small board with a lot of functionality: in-circuit serial programming, JTAG, debug wire, and high voltage serial programming. Unfortunately, out of the box it is not quite ready for action. The Dragon ships with an unpopulated prototyping area and missing a pin header for the HVSP. For most people this means soldering on pin headers and a ZIF socket then jumpering between the various programming headers and the header for the socket. Tired of working with jumper wires, [Jussi] designed a small PCB to make the connections (original link in Finnish).

dragon_proto_area

Above you can see the Dragon as it ships, with pin headers and ZIF socket added, and with jumper wires for prototyping. It’s easy to see why there is demand for an alternative. We have a Dragon Rider 500 prototyping board that we use with our Dragon, but [Jussi] feels that board is a bit too much for him.

dragon_jumper_sockets

His design uses header sockets to make the connections between pin headers on the AVR Dragon’s prototyping area. It also connects a crystal and has a jumper for selecting USB power. This solution requires a different adapter board for each different size of chip (8-pin, 20-pin, 28-pin, etc) and doesn’t facilitate connecting external circuits. But if you just need to program a lot of chips, this reduces the setup time to mere seconds.



21 Responses to AVR Dragon wiring alternative

  • jan says:
    September 26, 2009 at 9:48 am

    why do you refer yourself as we? i mean this is ridiculous, come on

    Reply Report comment
  • mars says:
    September 26, 2009 at 10:51 am

    > why do you refer yourself as we? i mean this is ridiculous, come on

    Uhm.. He probably means everyone at Hack a Day.

    Reply Report comment
  • D1g1talDragon says:
    September 26, 2009 at 11:22 am

    That is PERFECT. I’ve been wanting to do the exact same thing myself since I got my Dragon a few years back, but never got around to finishing my PCB lightbox. Very clean, and a simple solution.

    Reply Report comment
  • jimmys says:
    September 26, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    “Unfortunately, out of the box it is not quite ready for action.”

    Now we’re getting ads for products that aren’t just lame but are defective? We are not amused.

    Reply Report comment
  • Zake says:
    September 26, 2009 at 1:28 pm

    dragon might not be ready for action out of the box, but it just gives user many opportunities to adjust it to best for him-/herself.

    Reply Report comment
  • sleeper says:
    September 26, 2009 at 1:52 pm

    For what it’s worth, the dragon’s a steal in the UK. It’s the only about $/£ 5 more than an AVRISP II, which only does serial programming.

    Reply Report comment
  • Mesmer says:
    September 26, 2009 at 6:08 pm

    Hi I’m a new fan of the site and would like to take the opportunity to voice an idea for a cool article in your blog:

    how about a nice IC roundup that takes a blunt approach by telling pro’s and con’s of each platform. I mean with this Dragon I just discovered here it has become a little too much too keep track of. I actually don’t know what I would use for my next project. I’m sure you could make nice, general recommendations: xbee, Atmegas, that mbus from the other day, the Propeller, PICs?, Arduinos…

    would love that.
    thanks for such a cool blog.
    -h

    Reply Report comment
  • draeath says:
    September 26, 2009 at 9:13 pm

    Mesmer: this isn’t a blog.

    Reply Report comment
  • D says:
    September 26, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    @draeath,
    Various authors posting “things we like” hosted on wordpress. If it’s not a blog, what is it then?

    Reply Report comment
  • Death says:
    September 26, 2009 at 10:35 pm

    @D

    A weblog…:O…. ;)

    Reply Report comment
  • therian says:
    September 27, 2009 at 12:32 am

    @Mesmer
    Dont think people have enough experience with all platforms to properly describe them, if something will be biased because misinformation it will start flame war. Just use on whot you can find most information, they all same pretty much

    Reply Report comment
  • therian says:
    September 27, 2009 at 12:50 am

    @jimmys
    you ignorant dumbass, I dont work with ARV but know about dragon anyways, it just insane that there is people who work with avr and newer heard about dragon, it was long before arduinos and all that crap and it continue to be superior.

    Reply Report comment
  • Drone says:
    September 27, 2009 at 4:04 am

    i love my dragon. my dragon loves this. bus pirate is jealous.

    Reply Report comment
  • saimhe says:
    September 28, 2009 at 1:25 am

    Lots of lint in the first picture :) Vacuum cleaner broken?

    Reply Report comment
  • Jussi says:
    September 28, 2009 at 8:13 am

    @saimhe: You’re concentreting on the essential :D I guess that I’ve cleaned the PCB negligently so that it has some flux residue which makes dust stick to it. But hey, that’s not the point ;)

    Reply Report comment
  • djdrewsgrl09 says:
    September 28, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    amazingly i never knew something like this actually existed. i have been hearing a lot about it from a few people but i never really thought about it. i think it is pretty cool, being the semi – geek as i have been told by many lately.

    still good work hack a day.

    Reply Report comment
  • apothus says:
    September 28, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    I got my dragon a few years back and it is a fantastic little tool. I’m always hesitant to do ISP actually in system because there have been reports of the whole thing cooking itself when writing in another system.

    This is a useful gadget, and really handy if your swapping between different chips all the time but a lot of effort if you only use the one type of micro controller *cough* atmega32 *cough*

    Reply Report comment
  • Nick says:
    October 28, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    Apothus: Have you checked out the atmega 48/88/168?

    They’ve got less pins (no PORTA) and half the flash/eeprom/sram, but are nicer in most other ways.

    They have most of the same peripherals. work off lower voltages, operate at higher speeds.
    They’re a 300mil dip, so they fit in more prototype style boards, and they’re almost identical in every way except storage, so you can build with one, and scale up/down as storage requires.

    Also, ranging in price from about $2.75 to $5 they’re way cheaper than the mega32.

    If you really need all those pins, look at the mega324 or something. Better bang for the buck, though still a bit pricy in comparison.

    Reply Report comment
  • Darang says:
    July 19, 2010 at 3:13 pm

    Hello, ^^
    Could I ask you a question?
    The connector you used in avr dragon.
    How could I find it?
    Could you tell me the model name?

    Reply Report comment
  • twinkel says:
    October 21, 2010 at 1:10 pm

    What, a pity, link is dead

    Reply Report comment
  • Doug Smith says:
    March 6, 2011 at 9:48 am

    Neat, but you can do this (in a more messy way) with an old IDE cable. See http://drdobbs.com/blogs/embedded-systems/229300240

    I read this and 15 minutes later had plugs for 8515 and ATM32. Not as neat as the PCB but I did neater than the guy’s pictures.

    Reply Report comment

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