what have i done?!?! a flash gone wrong?

headsmess

hopefully, this post will make sense. i ramble, so bear with me.

i was having issues with my printer after i had to reinstall my OS...win7. some virus had me uninstalling every single program, with inevitable results.

finally got it working but repetier host wasnt liking my sd card anymore... and everytime i turned out (or on) my shed lights, it would stop, so i thought it would be nice to go back to the SD printing, that seemed bulletproof. (only time that didnt annoy me to tears was when i did it on the 2nd last line of a 25 hour print! still, if i had waited just a few minutes more..grrr)

reprap mendel.
melzi MB. ebay hybrid thingy apparently.

i was pretty sure i followed all the instructions... compiled some firmware using repetier, installed the IDE, figured out how to flash the firmware... after much thumping my head against walls. still, i was already taking some hefty painkillers due to a broken jaw so i didnt feel a thing :)

anyways!

i thought it worked fine the other night, except the SD card still wasnt registering in host... turns out there was a tab to click in the compiler, so i thought it would be an idea to recompile and re-flash... last night, other than the SD issue, it was printing fine, no problems at all. so i trust 99.9% of the default compiler settings for the melzi board.

i did so(reflashed with new configuration.h settings...), with no errors popping up. just like last night.

except... the LED stopped lighting up with power applied... (just flipped jumper over to USB rather than the main PS just now...no difference)
the fan sort of "kicks" at about 1Hz, but doesnt fire up as it used to, before i flashed it. only thing i did this time differently was set eeprom mode to 2, as there was something about that in the instructions?

and now that i try to flash anything, like the marlin settings, or simply just erase the eeprom (via the arduino IDE) or anything AT ALL... (even some snippet of cut'n'paste code that should have flashed the LED at 1hz) nothing happens other than this error message...

avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0xee

so, exactly where have i gone wrong and just what do i do to fix this? am i going to have to get some gizmo to re-burn the bootloader or something similarly stupid?

ive tried rebooting, unplugging, etc etc. all i seem to have now is a printer frame with a useless board.

IDE is still registering the port when i plug the usb cable back in, and the PC makes that babloop sound, so somethings working at one end at least

i seriously wish this was like setting up my milling machine that didnt require any coding experience... took me long enough to figure out what the // does in the marlin configuration settings! sheesh! and they still wont work, because of that sync error!

takes more painkillers and keeps bashing head against wall

oh. any help is appreciated :)

headsmess

update...

i held the reset button, until compiling complete then let go for the upload.
and marlin settings flashed without the sync error. LED is now flashing at 1hz, and to make sure it isnt that lil snippet i put on the eeprom earlier...erased and reflashed again... still no sync error like before. LED keeps flashing at me rudely.

but now host isnt responding, other than the hotend temperature going mental. i just burnt my finger testing to see if it actually was heating :) despite the hotend being crossed out, switched off...its getting rather warm!
yep, baud rates are all set at 115200... oh, and my table seems to have disappeared. i can see it, host doesnt...

i shall try compiling the repetier firmware again, go back to eeprom mode 1, and see what happens. at least all isnt lost...yet :)

i'm learning! didnt really want to be doing this, but im learning!

i need a break...time to go play guitar instead i reckon...

Repetier

avrdude errors are often a mystery. I have boards I flash 20 times a day and try 21 gets some errors and then it continuos getting errors. Sometimes rebooting/disconnecting helps. Sometimes I just switch to a other virtual computer and it works. These problems come, stay a while and then are gone without the need to change the software at all.

eeprom mode changes just make sure you copy values from Configuration.h to eeprom on next startup overwriting all existing values. If that is wanted is up to you, I don't need it.

M502

M500

Does the same btw, so this is more if you have messed up with baudrate settings.

headsmess

thanks for the fast reply :)

yep...i tried pressing that reset button many times, and then... it worked.

ive now reflashed about 7 times since making this post... and there shall be more to come as i tune everything up...but!

its finally starting to make sense!

a lot of wiki tutorials etc tend to just glaze over some of the most challenging parts, which may be fine for people familiar with coding, but is a complete nightmare for those that arent...and of course, with seemingly 50 billion choices of boards, drivers, etc etc etc, the whole things a nightmare. go here, click this link, download that, read, re-read, get confused... learning new terminology. ouch. very hard to be specific with these things.

anyways. i now have my fan back, i have movement in all axes, and the hotbed has returned from vacation. tomorrow...i calibrate my bed and hotend, that i just figured out how to get running again now :) then maybe its an idea to invert my X and Z, both are now in reverse... figure out where in the marlin firmware its making the LED blink and sort that out... i still havent had any luck with the repetier firmware, but now i know what i am looking for...shouldnt be too hard.

i feel clever now :) time for bed. one day i might even get the SD card functional again!

this whole thing makes CNC machining feel like childs play... all you gotta do for that one is think where to clamp stuff and which cut comes first, etc...