Flash An Arduino From An SD Card

[Kevin] has been working on reverse engineering the protocol used by the Arduino IDE and porting it to the Arduino platform. Now that his BootDrive project is nearing completion, he’s ready to give every Arduino the ability to program another Arduino over an SD card.

BootDrive isn’t terribly different from using an Arduino as an ISP, only now AVRdude runs on the Arduino itself and no computer is required to put new firmware into the target Arduino.  [Kevin] attached a MicroSD breakout board to an Arduino-compatible clone. When the clone starts up, it searches the SD card for a file called ‘program.hex.’ This file is sent over to the target Arduino and the new firmware is installed.

While it may not be extremely practical if you’ve only got a few Arduinos that never leave your workbench, we’re thinking this would be an invaluable tool if you need to update the software on a board already ‘in the field,’ serving as a weather station or homemade game camera. [Kevin] put up a demo of his BootDrive project; you can check that out after the break.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4wJ4kRO80Ew=470]

30 thoughts on “Flash An Arduino From An SD Card

  1. FYI: The Arduino is using the stk500v1 protocol, except for the ArduinoMega2560 which uses the stk500v2 protocol. And every Arduino type uses a different baudrate. No reverse engineering needed, these protocols have descriptions available.

    1. Yeah if you saw this on the Adafruit show and tell this weekend, Kevin goes out of his way to say it’s NOT reverse engineering… he’s just making a custom application out of a process that isn’t well understood by most users.

      I think this is pretty cool… you could sell kits and shields from a vending machine, and people could plug in their duino and get the right code downloaded… and everything just “works” in the field.

      For people who want something different than this, there ARE Arduino boards which can be remotely upgraded via Ethernet (so only one ‘duino is needed).

  2. This could be really cool if a bootloader was available that could load programs directly from the sd card on a single arduino. If you put some kind of interface on it like an lcd, you could have the user pick from a bunch of available programs and load it on demand. You could effectively increase the program memory indefinitely. Problem is it would be a huge bootloader and leave a bit less room for the actual program.

    1. In the last case a portable programmer with a lcd and a sd card reader could be used to program a arduino (or avr board) without a computer, that could be usefull and in that case a bootloader is not necessary.

      1. solution: cheaper chip that runs the bootoader from the SD card, something beefier like the Mega gets programmed. Or better yet, it programs several, selected by a multiplex system. This lets an array reprogram itself as needed to suit different roles

        of course when you reach more than a few AVRs it’s probably wise to consider stepping up to an ARM or an FPGA or something much beefier

  3. This is great but I was really hoping for a new arduino boot loader that can read from SD. If someone could strip an SD library down to its very basics (no directories). I would love the ability to just take an SD out and pop it in. But maybe now that the uno is switching to the 16U2 it might be possible.

    1. It’s been under discussion, somewhat. The minimal SD/FAT16 support seems to be about 1.4k of code, which is “somewhat promising” given that the initial Arduino bootloader was 2k total, and the current optiboot is 0.5k.

  4. Doesn’t this sound dangerous – A microcomputer programming itself? How long before the target Arduino begins having comments on what is being programmed into it? How many have to be connected together to become self-aware?

      1. No way, he’s right! This is nuts! A computer, running programs off of some sort of permanent storage? This is absolutely revolutionary! Why, pretty soon we won’t need those people feeding in the punch cards at all!

  5. you know how many people have been waiting 15 years for this sort of simple add-on in the christmas-lights-sequencing messageboards and fourms???

    they all know PIC and AVR but NONE of them has any clue about how to change “the pattern” when out in the feild! well i mean they know how to add more patterens and make a button to change them but they do not know how to ADD a NEW pattern in the feild without bringing inside and hooking it up to a programmer.

    in this case; FIELD MAEANS FIELD !!!
    thats the key here!

    EVERY LAST FREAKING ONE OF THEM WILL WORSHIP YOU IF U JUST SIGN UP AND TELL EM ALL !!!

    EDIT: the ones that dont have a laptop permenently connected to a network of light-control-boxes…

    most only want simple self-contained system they dont have to waste GAS MONEY to DRIVE AROUND just to drop a freaking 2kb file!

    but with this they got 100000 2kb files at their disposal, screw that, they got 64kb files! AND they can show EACH file to the PAYING customer while ONSITE! imagine that!
    like a pro serviceman!

    1. PS: as it stands, the existing pro’s in this field all carry around a laptop and envy EVERY other serviceman, what, whith thier custom “software-update” boxes.

      picture this:
      “update me”
      “okay, i need my laptop cord”
      “okay”
      “wait, windows wants a restart”
      “ugh, i should have hired someone else”
      “…”

      NOW picture this:
      “update me”
      “okay, just a second”
      “how long will… OH WOW! cool effect!!!”
      “hehehe. yeh it does look much better with new code!…”
      “…or try this one,,,”
      “SWEET! i want this one instead!”
      “that’ll be $21.97”
      “OKAY!”

  6. finally i may be able to get into the world of programmable logic controllers.

    in the past you had to use a special programmer and programmable chip and a pc.

    looking at this mac users can get into the world of programmable logic controllers because the data can be saved to an sd card (most macs can read and write to older pc formatted media) and the media can do the programming

    1. Just note that this setup will only load software onto an Arduino platform, not a traditional PLC.

      With some knowledge and patience it MAY be possible to adapt this to flash/load other platforms. That task would be difficult if the target device needs real programming/flashing of the chip. Same task is easier if the target device accepts code over serial (which really isn’t flashing per se, just I/O).

    1. Hmmm, as there is a protocol change for 2560, I used a 1280 as master and a 1280 as target… Card is read OK, but I only get bunch of errors and nothing else… So I suspect 1280 (MEGA) may also use a v2 protocol…?? Any hint???

    2. Stange enough, tests between two Arduino MEGAs with 1280 MCU do work with the “blink” code (about 4k). But the same configuration with larger hex (like ASCIIDump) fails without explanation…

  7. The bootdrive code can be applied only to bootloaders which uses stk500 protocol.
    Mega 2560 uses stk500v2 protocol.
    Is there any possible way to use this on mega2560….??

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