Flashing the Arduino Nano with AVRDUDE

I had a hard time figuring this out, took me over three hours of scavenging the internet. Hope this helps somebody.

Why do I want to use AVRDUDE

If you are at this page you already know about the arduino…

I want to use the Arduino Nano in a LED light controller circuit I have built. I want to program color led’s that are attached to clothing (dance costumes) to operate in millisecond level sync. For more look at https://lytesync.com

This requires that the led sequence is flashed to the Arduino Nano. That means that I have to release the source code of my application for anybody else to program their own sequence.

I have a cloud service that lets you create a LED light/color sequence, and as part of building the sequence I compile the Arduino program with the sequence embedded in the code space. Compiling it generates a HEX file.

I want the end user to be able to program the hex file they download onto their Arduino Nano.

Get to the point…

You came here looking for a solution, not to wade through my notes on how I went about solving it. So here goes:

avrdude -c arduino -p m328p -P /dev/cu.usbserial-1110 -b 57600 -v -U flash:w:bl.hex

Key items:

I’m on a Mac, so replace the /dev/cu.usbserial-1110 with the link to your USB device (Arduino nano).

The reason I am writing this post is the serial port speed to flash the Arduino nano with the old bootloader. Setting the speed to 57600 was the key to solving this.

bl.hex is the output of compiling the arduino .ino file.

In case you are looking for a command line to compile your arduino .ino file to a hex file. Output will go to your build directory. Note i’m using the Mac you may need to tweak the command line.

/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/MacOS/Arduino lytesync_arduino.ino --board arduino:avr:nano:cpu=atmega328old --verify --pref build.path=./build

Things to remember

I am talking about the $3 Arduino that I bought on Amazon. This one uses the “old bootloader”

If you want to read other internet links that talk about this. I got here because of them.

Relevant links and notes

The Definitive Guide to AVRDUDE!

https://forum.arduino.cc/t/how-to-select-atmega328p-old-bootloader-for-uploading-avr-c-code/1149365

The above link was the clue that solved it for me.

https://openev.freshdesk.com/support/discussions/topics/6000012812

https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/53635/how-can-i-upload-hex-files-to-a-pro-micro-using-linux

avrdude -c arduino -p m328p -P /dev/cu.usbserial-1110 -b 57600 -v -U flash:w:bl.hex

Created bl.hex to use with bootloader. This was from the blink sample.

Key item was 57600