Hello NerdKits Members,

My username is Cameron, i recently started setting up the NerdKit and ran into the "Butterfly" error. I have tried everything on the forums (rebuild the circuit, WinAVR, DRIVERS, programming switch) and nothing seems to work so I'm sending you pictures of my circuit and a screenshot of what happens in the command terminal (I'm running WIN 7 64bit).

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0GBtry7RRzfVEZJcmxXOFRIVzA/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0GBtry7RRzfQzM3NU9OeEtvSTA/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0GBtry7RRzfR2t0cllsSUY2LTQ/edit?usp=sharing

Welcome Cameron. The butterfly error can be tricky. Your circuit looks good to me, however I may have missed something.

One other thing to try is unplugging your serial transmit and receive lines (yellow and green coming from the USB programming cable) and reboot your computer. Once rebooted, plug programmer back in and try it again. Also, make sure you are using the correct COM port in your Makefile.

Dave

Cameron -

Here's a quote from the NK Guidebook...

"There is a bug with the driver that causes the cable not work with any COM port larger than COM5, so if your computer assigns something larger to it, you have to manually change it."

I haven't had windows assign my USB/Serial cable to anything higher than COM5 so I don't know if this is still a problem or not. You have to go to the control panel in windows and navigate to the device manager/Comm Ports and poke around in some of the "Advanced" settings to change the COM port name. Just make sure you use a name that's not in use already.

Hi There, I just transferred my basic circuit to a larger breadboard and received the butterfly error also. I noticed that you get exactly the same error regardless of whether the circuit it turned on or off. For this reason I believe my breadboard is faulty and not powering the chip correctly. I'll post again if I confirm this was the care. Good luck

Hello again guys. SUCCESS!! I just transferred the circuit back to a known working breadboard and the thing works fine now. I believe the "butterfly" error may be related to the chip not being powered properly. If you are pulling your hair out trying to find out why the wiring LOOKS ok but doesn't work then I'd suggest measuring the voltage on the pins of your ATMEGA and make sure they are +5 or 0 as appropriate and go from there. Best of luck mate. Phill

Hey guys thanks for the suggestions.

Sorry for the long delay between posts... My initiallaod finally worked !! The problem was the USB to ttl cable. I had a old pc with a serial port,I breadboarded a serial to ttl circuit and it worked. Can i get the cable replaced??

Cameron

Cameron -

The Nerdkit guys don't visit the forum too much these days. Best bet is to email them a few times at "support@nerdkits.com". One thing to keep in mind if you switch to Windows 8 that cable won't work any more. Nice job wiring up a serial to ttl circuit. Mad skills.