Arduino Mega board is one of Arduino-based AVR microcontroller
variants. It’s powered by ATMega 2560 microcontroller. One advantage of this
board is more memory space availability than their 'brothers' such as Arduino
Uno, Nano or Pro Mini. It has Flash memory
4 Kb, SRAM (dynamic memory) 256 Kb and EEPROM 1 Kb, more than enough for
embedded system J.
So if someday you see a warning in debug window of Arduino IDE stating dynamic
memory is already close to 100%, this means that you should immediately upgrade
to the Arduino Mega.
If you buy a new Arduino Mega board, it should have been
built in bootloader. But if you're unlucky (buy new but still blank) or malfunction,
don’t worry, you can perform steps below to recovery your Arduino Mega. The
steps below actually aims to burn (re-upload) new bootloader to Arduino Mega so
it can functional again. Of course, it would be success if there is no physical
damage (hardware) in your Arduino Mega.
Tools & Materials
Well, we started ‘How to Burning Bootloader to Arduino Mega using
Arduino Uno’ tutorial with setting up necessary equipments and materials, such
as:
1. Arduino Mega, as target board
2. Arduino Uno, as bootloader programmer to the target (also
called Arduino ISP)
3. Female to female jumper cables (5 pcs)
4. Jumper cables female to male (1 pc)
Circuit
If all tools and materials are ready, connect Arduino Mega and
Uno board as shown below via ICSP port.
Step by step Burning Bootloader to Arduino Mega using Arduino Uno
Next, run your Arduino IDE then open 'Arduino ISP' sketch on
File-Example-ArduinoISP menu. Watch out, do not be mistaken select COM port (check
at Tools-Port, then choose Arduino Uno port instead of Arduino Mega port). Find
heartbeat() function (CTRL-F) then edit
delay (40); into delay (40); and upload the sketch to Arduino Uno. A few seconds
later your Arduino Uno board have turned into an ISP (In sytem Programmer)
board.
Next step, we will begin burning bootloader process. First,
change target board to 'Arduino Mega 2560' or ‘Arduino Mega ADK' (depend on
your board) while ‘Port’ setting still refer to Arduino Uno port (in Tools-Board
menu). Then select the 'Burn Bootloader' in ‘Tools’ menu to starting burning process.
Wait for about 10-30 seconds, then your Arduino Mega should now be filled with
new bootloader. Henceforth you can upload sketch to Arduino Mega as usual.
Finish, that’s all. In addition, there are other alternative
ways using USBasp board. You do not need Arduino Uno board again if you using
this method. How to do this, you can read ini previous tutorial how to burnArduino bootloader using USBASP.
A blogger, electro-hobbyst, freelancer n technopreneur. I'm an Indonesian, I did my best to make tutorial without spelling errors, please CMIIW or if something burned your eyes..
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