8. Updating Your Programmer's Firmware

Note: Only programmer revision PGM02B supports firmware upgrades. If you have revision PGM02A, this section does not apply to your product.

On August 20, 2008 we released a firmware update (firmware version 1.4) for the Orangutan USB programmer revision PGM02B that fixes a bug where the programmer could be left trying to drive some of its programming lines high if programming failed.

On July 31, 2008 we released a firmware update (firmware version 1.3) for the Orangutan USB Programmer revision PGM02B that causes the programmer to immediately abort if the target device loses power while programming is in progress, which makes it much less likely for the AVR to be corrupted. It also allows the programmer to work better with our Orangutan SV-xx8, Orangutan LV-168, Baby Orangutan B, and 3pi robot, which all have motor driver control lines that double as programming lines. Version 1.2 could cause motors connected to these devices to briefly kick during programming. Version 1.3 will not drive motors during programming.

Note that version 1.2 (and hence also version 1.3) fixed a serious bug in the programmer’s version 1.1 firmware. This bug causes the programmer to pull too much current while connected to the target device, which in turn can damage the programmer.

You can determine your firmware version number by following the steps listed in Section 5.c (Configuring Your Programmer for AVR Studio). The programmer used in the following screen shot has firmware version 1.0 (“Fw: 1.0”):

From this step, you can type x to exit without changing any version numbers.

If you have firmware version 1.1, 1.2, or 1.3, please download this file:

pgm02b_firmware_v1.4.pgm (47k pgm)

and follow the firmware update procedure detailed in the rest of this section.