AVR fuses ERROR troubleshooting


 
W

WillPBooth

New member
I recently purchased an assembled Heatermeter v4.3 (with case and 12vPSU) from the Heatermeter store. After delivery, I added an Pi Zero W, using the latest stable release from the heatermeter download site. After connecting the Pi to the heatermeterboard using the pinheader, powering up, and logging onto the webui, it appears that my Pi has no connection to the heatermeter board. The heatermeter board does power-on just fine, and is usable with the buttons and LCD screen. Attempting to flash the AVR firmware hm.hex from pi-storage, I get the AVR fuses ERROR, which appears to be somewhat common. Does anybody have any troubleshooting suggestions? Are there any commands I can run on the pi's CLI over SSH to help diagnose? Please let me know if I can supply other information to this thread to help diagnose.

After looking through prior forum posts on this subject, it appears that the AVR fuses ERROR root cause lies in assembly-error or soldering error. As I did not assemble the heatermeater myself, I am currently stumped. Thank you for your time.
 
I'm stumped too, because the assembled HeaterMeters are just attached to a Pi and booted up. The ATmega then automatically flashes, which confirms the SPI connection is working properly, then the configuration is changed to Thermocouple mode which verifies that the serial connection to the Pi is working. Finally all the other functions are tested manually.

The fact that neither communication bus is working for you really leaves me scratching my head. I would recommend trying the latest SNAPSHOT firmware and not the v14 release. I assume you're using the 12V power supply to power the whole thing and not a USB plug, correct? The only thing I can think it would be would be the pinheader on the Pi side, which would be weird that it would get 5V power from the HeaterMeter board, but at least one pin of each bus not connected. The pins involved are RX, TX (serial data), and MOS, MIS, SCK, and G25 (SPI for flashing).
 
Thanky you very much for your reply.
I have tried both the latest snapshot (my OP said "latest stable", which is ambiguous) and the v14 release. I am using the 12v PSU, only.
With regards to the Pi pin header, should I solder the pinheader onto the pi? Currently, mine is just slip-fit.
 
Oh yes 100% for sure you need to solder it to the Pi. Even though it may stay in place and some of the pins are making contact, not all will. I've personally troubleshot a ton of circuits I thought weren't working but it was just that the pinheader wasn't making contact across the entire range. You can shortcut this with 1xN pinheader by putting unreasonable force on the header at an angle so all the pins bend a little, but with 2xN, you gotta solder.
 
also verify once you're done soldering it's not plugged in upside down. I think that's easy to do with the Zero iirc.
 
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