chipKit & Arudino IDE - Have to reset to upload sketch

[Geomancer]

I'm been messing around with my chipKit Pro MX7 board with the chipKit core in Arduino IDE, but am having an annoying problem. In order to upload a sketch I'm having to manually reset the board and very quickly hit the upload button.

If I don't, the board continues to run the last sketch forever and Arduino gives the following error:

Quote

Arduino: 1.8.5 (Windows 10), TD: 1.41, Board: "chipKIT Pro MX7, Custom / Disabled"

Sketch uses 12880 bytes (2%) of program storage space. Maximum is 520192 bytes.
Global variables use 6376 bytes (4%) of dynamic memory, leaving 124696 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 131072 bytes.
    Copyright: (C) 2011-2015 Serge Vakulenko

No target found.
                   2016-2017 Majenko Technologies
Programmer for Microchip PIC32 microcontrollers, Version 2.1.41
An error occurred while uploading the sketch
 

2

It looks like the FTDI chip fails to reset the board.

As shown in the error message, I'm using 1.8.5 for Arduino on Windows 10, and have 2.0.3 of the chipKit core.

For good measure, I downloaded the bootloader from the Digilent website and programmed it into the board. This had the filename "Cerebot-MX7cK-v01000303.hex"

Is there a way to make this work, or is it just the way it is?

Thanks!

[JColvin]

Hi @Geomancer,

I believe what you need to do since you have the bootloader reinstalled, is to put a shorting block on JP11 (next to the UART port where you would program from the Arduino IDE) so that the appropriate reset line is brought low automatically for you. There are some more details in the reference manual in this section.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,
JColvin

[Geomancer]

Doh!

Now that you mentioned it, I do remember having read that. It completely slipped my mind.

I installed JP11 and I can see it reset the board (LD1 blinks), however, I still get the same problem. I actually can't program it at all with JP11 installed. I do see activity on LD9 and maybe one pulse on LD10.

[JColvin]

Hi @Geomancer,

If you are getting the same error as before, then my guess would (since I did the same thing earlier before I responded) is that the be that the bootloader didn't actually get installed. If you have MPLAB IPE (since I was using this post as a guide), make sure that after you connect to the board via header J15 and click the "Connect" button on MPLAB IPE to connect to the PIC32MX795F512L, to then press "Program" afterwards.

You might have already done this, but the first time I did it, the output after connecting made it look like the board was successfully programmed, so I disconnected the board, and reconnected to J12 only to find the same behavior that you described, so that's why I'm recommending it.

Let me know how it goes.

Thanks,
JColvin

[Geomancer]

I downloaded MPIDE, it works and is able to program the board.

Arduino IDE however still has the same problem.

The resource page for the chipKit Pro MX7 does not have a sketch for updating the bootloader. It only has the hex file. I re-downloaded it and used MPLAB X to program it to the board just to be sure.

Same behavior though. MPIDE works, Arduino IDE does not. I can sort of make Arduino IDE work if I remove JP11 and manually reset shortly before the compile progress bar reaches the end (so shortly before it tries to actually download).

[jpeyron]

Hi @Geomancer,

Have you tried using the Digilent core instead of the chipkit core?

thank you,

Jon