Tiny AVR Programmer - ATTINY (PGM-11801)

Tiny AVR Programmer - Sparkfun PGM-11801

The ATtiny45 and 85 are a couple of really cool little MCUs but did you know you can program them in Arduino? That’s right, now you can shrink your Arduino projects down to “tiny size” by moving your code straight over to these small but capable ICs.

The Tiny AVR Programmer plugs directly into your USB port and provides a programming socket for the ATTiny45 and 85.

Just slot an ATtiny with a DIP footprint into the socket, plug the programmer into your USB port and start up the Arduino IDE. After installing the proper board definitions, you simply program it the same way you would any other Arduino board.

The programmer even breaks out the IC pins to female headers so you can easily prototype around the ATtiny without pulling and plugging it over and over. There are two ISP headers that have also been broken out so you can use the programmer of solder in a 6-pin header for other AVR microcontrollers!

Schematic:

Documents:

• usbtinyisp_libusb_1.2.6.0
• firmware-final_TinyAVRProg
• GitHub

Connecting up:

Testing out:

The 4-pin headers on either side of the socket help for prototyping the ATtiny85 out to external circuitry. You can easily plug male jumper wires into these pins, which can be routed to breadboards or other prototyping circuits.

Notes:

• You’ll need to install the USBTinyISP drivers if you don’t have them yet unless you use a Mac, which has them built into the OS.