Do It Yourself - Electronics Blog

USB Programmer for AVR & 8051 series

About the programmer

This simple microcontroller programmer can progam most of the 89 likeAtmel' AT89S51, AT89S52,
AT89S53, AT89S8252, AT89S8253 including the Atmel AVR series of microcontroller , it does not support
89C series . It simply consists of an ATMega8 and a couple of passive components. The programmer uses
a firmware-only USB driver, no special USB controller is needed.

Features

Works under multiple platforms. Linux, Mac OS X and Windows are tested.

No special controllers or smd components are needed.

Programming speed is up to 5kBytes/sec.

SCK option to support targets with low clock speed (< 1,5MHz).

Note :-if you have all ready have your USBasp programmer for AVR then there is no need
buid new hardware you just need to change the firmware of the programmer microcontroller.

Simple Steps to made This programmer

Step 1:-

Download:Firmware and circuit
The following packages include circuit and firmware.
Firmware is the software which going to be burn into programmer's microcontroller, this firmware have code
to enable the programmer to communicate with pc via usb and target microcontroller.

Click This link to download the Firware and circuit
usbasp(4 kB )
Please refer to Readme.txt for details on building, installing and using USBasp.

Schematic USB 8051 & AVR Mircrocontroller progammer

Step 2:-

Buy The parts You need

Part Descirption Qty

ATMEGA8 Microcontroller 1

3.6 Volts Zeaner Diode 2
22pf Capacitor 2
100nf Capacitor 1
4.7uf capacitor 1
12Mhz Crystal 1
10K Resistance 1
1K Resistance 3
68ohm Resistance 2
2.2K Resistance 1
LED Led (Red & Geen) 2
USB connector 1
USB Cable 1
Male Burg Strip 1
Jumpers 3

Step 3:-

PCB:
You can create your own pcb using any PCB editor like eagle, OR you can solder the circuit a general
purpose pcb,You Can also Use PCB created By me Click here to download my pcb design

Click here to Download the software which i used to design.

Step 4:-

Getting The Atmega8 Microcontroller Ready To be used as a programmer:-

Getting the atemega8 microcontroller ready to be inserted into the newly soldered pcb ,and start working.
you have to burn the firmware which you just downloaded in the Step 1 into the atmega8 microcontroller.
you can use the serial avr programmer to get this job done. click here to know about how to make a
serial avr progammer and how to program the atmega8 by using a serial avr programmer.

Note:- Make sure you burn the right fuse bit configration along with the firmware into atmega8
microcontroller for atemega8 the fuse bit are
atmega8 HFUSE=0xC9 LFUSE=0xEF

if you have a problem how to burn those fuse bit use the serial avr programmer.

Step 5:-

Driver installation on a PC:-

At the first time when you connect your programmer to the PC your programmer will be detected as
USBasp and you have to provide a proper path for drivers to be installed.

USB AVR prorammer Dected By the widnows

Give the Instruction for a specific location driver installation

Give the path for driver to be installed

USB AVR Programmer installed

USB AVR programmer is being connected and shown in device manager

On Linux and MacOS X no kernel driver is needed.
Windows requires a driver for USBasp: usbasp-windriver.2009-02-28.zip (70 kB)

Note: Windows Vista/7 x64 requires drivers with digital signature. Currently there are no official drivers for
libusb (USBasp software is based on it) with such a signature. Users reported that there is a tool named
"Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider" to avoid the signature check.

Step 6:-

Programming the other microcontrollers:-

You can use Progisp software to burn the hex file in to the traget microcontrollers.
note: i don't suggest you to use any other sofware then the progisp. but if this works with any other then
you are free to use that.

click here to download progisp168

Schematic

Connections to the traget microcontroller:-

* you can programe may microcontroller by using this schematic , all you need to do is that
find out the data sheet of that mcu you want to program and check the pin configration. and
the look for PINMOSI MISO SCK and Reset , the connection will be as follows