LOW COST AVR PROGRAMMERS
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When you step in to the world of digital electronics and microcontrollers is necessary to choose the type of microcontroller to work with. Whether it is the PIC, ARM, AVR or some other type, you will need a quality programmer. There are programmer devices who can program several different families of microcontrollers, but they are very expensive for someone who has just started adventure in the world of electronics.
All of us can program a microcontroler – it’s not a Rocket Science; all we need is an appropriate tool, or in this case a programmer device that is financially accessible. General disadvantage of these tools is that they can program only one type of microcontroller, but concerning the price, availability and your desire to get familiar with that particular types of microcontroller this is not such a big obstacle.
Nowadays USB port is dominating the computer peripheral market over a serial and parallel port. That’s why most of programmers use USB port. Their main benefit is that they can be made out of components that you already have in your home electronic workshop.
In this article we will present the programmers for AVR microcontrollers that you can purchased for less than $100. We have tried to separate microcontrollers that you can make by yourself and the ones that are commercial and available for you to buy.
Non-commercial programmers
Serial port programmers
AVR-PG1 – Olimex serial port dongle
Parallel port programmer
AVR-PG2 – Olimex paralel port dongle
USB port programmers
USBasp – official page and assembling instructions
PCB layouts – on this page you can find some different PCB layouts for this programmer
SMD hardware – SMD board for programmer
Commercial programmers
USB port programmers
Atmel – AVR In-System Programmer
SparkFun – Pocket AVR Programmer
AVRISP SA2 – Stand Alone 2 Series
CONCLUSION
We hope that we have managed to help you choose the appropriate tool for your first steps in the world of electronics.
Amazing, some of them are real low-cost programmers. Nice collection, thanks.