Question about the DIY USB Adapter

[shawly]

Hey guys,

I bought myself a little board with an ATmega32u4 chip on Amazon for flashing my Chromecast, I wanted to send it back since I don't need it afterwards anymore.

But then I thought I could probably use it for other purposes and saw, that I could use it for a GIMX adapter. My question is, can I follow the DIY USB Adapter for Dummies guide and spare myself from the soldering part? Instead of the Teensy Loader I would have to use the Arduino Builder to flash the firmware but since the firmware is for ATmega32u4 chips it should probably work, right?

Or do I have to follow the DIY USB adapter guide and get myself an ISP too? I'm not sure, it's pretty much a Leonardo clone but at the same time it looks like it's one of the "cheap" ATmega32u4 boards.

Depending on how well GIMX works, I might want to replace my XIM4 with that, but for now this is just planned as a little project to keep myself busy.

[Matlo]

Hi,

I moved the topic to the discussion section. If you want to use this board you'll have to solder 3 pins, and you'll have to use an ISP to load the GIMX firmware. It's also possible to load a dfu bootloader firmware so that you'll only need the ISP once.

[shawly]

Thanks for the answer Matlo! That's the information I needed, I'll solder the included pins so I can use jumper wires.

It's also possible to load a dfu bootloader firmware so that you'll only need the ISP once.

Could you explain this a little further? How do I connect the ISP and is the dfu bootloader firmware included within your GIMX software package?

Also why is there a need for an ISP to flash the firmware? Can't I just flash the appropriate hex file via the Arduino Builder and the USB port?

[Matlo]

I think the arduino bootloader can't erase itself (but I might be wrong).

DFU bootloader uploading instructions:
http://www.stanleylio.com/home/usblufa
There are good wiring pictures here;
http://www.coreforge.com/blog/2014/09/r ... tmega32u4/