Getting start with Arduino Pro mini

[rangin]

Hi All,
So my 3.3v and 5v arduino pro minis arrived.
I soldered the pins so I could connect my FTDI cable.
I plugged in the cable and the power led lit up so that was a good start, windows said the FTDI drivers had installed correctly.
However I then tried to run the basic blink sketch just to test everything was ok and I get the following error 

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x2d

This happens on both the 3.3v and 5v pro minis.

I did a little digging and when I check the device manager on my PC the port the mini is connected on is listed a USB serial port COM5
whereas when I plug in my main UNO it is listed as 'Arduino Uno (COM4)'

I updated my arduino ide as I though it might be some driver problem but that had no effect.

I have hit the reset button a lot of times on the pro minis but again that doesn't appear to have had any effect.

In the ide in the Tools menu I can select the right board and port, but again the port is not listed as a pro mini.

So anyone have any ideas am I missing a driver and if so where do I get it?

The only other info I can think might be connected is my soldering, I connected all 6 pins at the end of the pro mini are there pins I should not have connected?

Thanks
Rangin.

[RC Tractor Guy]

Hi,

I'm pretty sure your FTDI cable should just be coming up as a com port because it has nothing to do with Arduino boards so the driver wouldn't make it appear as such. The FTDI chip on the Arduino on the other hard is permanently mounted to the UNO board so regardless of what microcontroller you were using that would say it was an UNO. I think that is the case anyway so I think your FTDI is fine.

There are 4 pro mini boards in the tools menu, are you sure you chose the correct chip and voltage? I think it is Atmega 328 and 5 volts for mine.

You were right to solder all the pins, I'm pretty sure you need them all.

You might check that the FTDI wires are the right way around, I think they were mixed up when I got mine years ago. I was able to check the colour codes in the spec sheet of mine.

[rangin]

Ok so looking at the cable I have to say I'm a little confused
Google tells me the pins should be

1   Black      GND
2   Brown     CTS
3   Red        Vcc
4   Orange   TXD
5   Yellow    RXD
6   Green     RTS

My cable is a little different, not 100% which end is pin 1 and which is pin 6 but there is an arrow above the pin on the left hand side of the connector so I will guess that is pin 1 therefore my pinout is

1   Red
2   Black
3   White
4   Green
5   Yellow
6   Blue

When I plug the cable into the mini I get a power led on the mini so would that suggest pins 1 and 3 are correct?
Or should I just try and re-wire the whole thing to be the same as google suggests but guess that on my cable white = brown and blue = orange?


Thanks
Rangin

 

[rangin]

Hi,
So after some more digging I may have found the solution to my problem
www.amazon.com/Huhushop-TM-FT232RL-Adapter-Arduino/dp/B00HCZ4GTC

This is an FTDI cable that seems to follow my wiring colours and also have a review from someone who I think was having the same problem as me. I will try it out and let everyone know.

Thanks
Rangin.

[RC Tractor Guy]

Glad you have a plan, the FTDI cable in the link appears to be wired in the correct configuration for the Arduino but colour/pin chart is different which is a bit strange. 

I was looking at the image below and noticed the pin on the right which says BLK is connected to ground and the pin on the left marked GRN appears to be connected to nothing so I guess we only need the four in the middle really. 

[rangin]

Hi,
So I discovered the same thing I only need the 4 pins in the middle and it worked first time, then I hit my next problem it only worked 1 in 5 times.
A bit more googling and I discovered if you hit the reset just as the compile finishes and the upload begins it works everytime, if you turn on verbose for compile and upload in the arduino ide preferences it is easier to see when this happens.

So after all that I have two blinking pro minis

One other thing I also got the small nrf chip when you said it was small I had no idea how small , it probably only about 1/3 the size of the normal one and it is not as if the normal one is a big chip, my 2mm wire won't even fit into the pin holes

Thanks for all the help
Rangin

[RC Tractor Guy]

Great it's working. I've noticed that problem too, I've just gotten used to it.

Is it the NRF24LE chip that you got? I bought two of those and made a mess of them so I switched to the bigger