Arduino can't communicate with control board, LEDs always on

K8200 3D Printer K8200 - Wiring and electronics
1

I’m in the process of upgrading my K8200 to use an e3d V6 hotend. The new thermistor and heater are wired up, and I connected to it via Repetier Host 1.5 and was driving the stepper motors and powering the heaters just fine. So the brains are good, it seems. However! I’ve gotten to the point where I need to make changes to the firmware, and I seem to have come across a blocker: I can’t communicate with the controller via Arduino any longer. When I unplug the power brick from the wall (I have it connected to the screw terminals, so that’s the easiest way to unpower it), both the LD5 and LD6 LEDs come on (Red and Green, Reset and Power) and stay on. When I try to upload the sketch, during this process the LEDs continue to glow uninterrupted, and I get

Binary sketch size: 102,432 bytes (of a 258,048 byte maximum) avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout avrdude: stk500v2_getsync(): timeout communicating with programmer

I have checked all the gotchas (I think) from the Velleman firmware flashing manual page: Cable is connected, correct board is picked (Mega 2560), port is selected, etc. I’ve got the JPROG jumpered short. The USB connector seems to be mechanically attached to the board still, and doesn’t wiggle when I connect/disconnect the USB cable.

Additionally, clicking the Reset button up by the thermistor connectors doesn’t do anything either. Anything in this case defined as making the LEDs do something other than glow.

So, any tips or tricks from any Arduino masters out there? I have both another Arduino Mega 1280 and an FTDI basic programmer that I can theoretically wire to the 6-pin header and communicate with it that way. Can I write the firmware over that way? I’ve never played around with ArduinoISP before, but I think that’s possible?

2

Ended up hooking up my spare Arduino as Arduino as ISP and trying to program it that way. It worked, maybe, but I couldn’t get it to reproduce. So, in a fit of curiosity, I tried uploading directly to the K8200 board via USB with the Arduino as ISP still hooked up.

And it worked (and keeps working). So, that’s cool.

3

Programming the controller [color=#BF0000]ONLY[/color] works with fully powered printer, thus [color=#FF0000]15v has to be connected ALSO.[/color].

4

I absolutely would have argued up and down that there’s a step “Disconnect 15v power from board before flashing”, but there’s not. What the heck, brain? I even reread the flashing steps page yesterday and swear I read it. Oh well!

5

I thinnk you may have read the instructions for the K8400.

6

I was reading through the K8400 assembly and user manuals to check out the extruder setup. I never read through the flashing instructions, but that must’ve been where I got it from.