Burning bootloader - Part 2

Well, I had some problems recording the UNO bootloader on the first experiences, and got stuck with 2 chips "bricked", now that I have some spare time, got back to them and found a shield/guide of how auto-recording the chips, and how to recover them, the code is here and the way to connect the pins of the chip which you want to burn, are here:

• Pin 1 to digital 10 - Blue 
• Pin 7 to 5V - Red 
• Pin 8 to Ground - Black 
• Pin 9 to digital 9 - Gray 
• Pin 17 to digital 11 - Brown 
• Pin 18 to digital 12 - Orange 
• Pin 19 to digital 13 - Yellow 
• Pin 20 to +5V - Red 
• Pin 22 to Ground - Black 

The configuration is an arduino board and a breadboard with the chip which needs to be recorded/the "bricked" one. After connecting the pins to the second board (as described) you should upload the code to the arduino, select:
"Tools-> Programmer->Arduino as ISP"
 and "Tools->Board->Arduino Uno" proceed as in the picture:

It worked for me and I "unbricked" the chips, you can see the entire article here.

This procedure will work on ATmega328P-PU and ATmega328P-PN, for the ATmega328-PU you will have to use the following workaround:

Workaround for ATmega328-PU:

 

In your Arduino folder, find the subfolder: ..\hardware\tools\avr\etc

Make a backup copy of the file: avrdude.conf

1. Open the file avrdude.conf in a text editor
2. Search for: 0x1e 0x95 0x0F (this is the ATmega328P signature)
3. Replace it with: 0x1e 0x95 0x14 (this is the ATmega328 signature)
4. Save the file 
5. Proceed as described previously 
6. Restore the avrdude.conf to it's original settings

The standalone project is here, hope someday to have time and € to do one, for myself!

Update on the 12 February 2015: Gave up on standalone project, because it does not use the optiboot code and does not work very well, or not at all. I will build a shield to burn the UNO's using things explained within this article. Also updated the code link to a 2011 routine, instead of the 2009.
Update on the 13 February 2015: Gave up of the updated 2011 routine, didn't work for the ATmega328P-PN, back to the fine 2009.

Burning an arduino bootloader (optiboot)

I got a few samples from Maxim (thank you Maxim) but they came "clean" without the optiboot or anything like that, so I had to burn it down. I used the minimal circuit which can be found on the picture on the right, and here is the procedure:

To burn the bootloader, follow these steps:

1. Download this hardware configuration archive: Breadboard.zip
2. Download the latest Optiboot library. 
3. Create a "hardware" sub-folder in your Arduino sketchbook folder (whose location you can find in the Arduino preferences dialog). If you've previously installed support for additional hardware configuration, you may already have a "hardware" folder in your sketchbook.
4. Move the "breadboard" folder from the zip archive to the "hardware" sub-folder of your Arduino sketchbook. If you don't have a "breadboard" folder there, create one, an put the file in it.
5. Restart the Arduino software.
6. You should see "ATmega328 on a breadboard (8 MHz internal clock)" in the Tools > Board menu.
7. Upload the ArduinoISP sketch onto your Arduino board. (You'll need to select the board and serial port from the Tools menu that correspond to your board.)You'll find this under "examples".
8. Wire up the Arduino board and micro-controller as shown in the diagram to the right.
9. Select "ATmega328 on a breadboard (8 MHz internal clock)" from the Tools > Board menu. 
10. Under  the optiboot directory, execute the command avrdude -P /dev/ttyACM0 -b 19200 -c avrisp -p m328p -u -U flash:w:"optiboot_atmega328.hex" :i -F
11. After finished, use: avrdude -p atmega328P -c avrisp -P /dev/ttyACM0 -b 19200 -u -U efuse:w:0x05:m -U hfuse:w:0xDA:m -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m -U lock:w:0x0F:m -F
    
    otherwise the boot will be recorded/burned, but the chip will not accept uploads.

For ATmega328-PU:

If you try to bootload an ATmega328-PU, you’ll get a message something along the lines of:

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9514
avrdude: Expected signature for ATMEGA328P is 1E 95 0F
Double check chip, or use -F to override this check.

You could also get a more colourful version:

avrdude: Yikes! Invalid device signature.

The way to work around this is to “trick” the IDE into believing your 328-PU is in fact a 328P-PU. Disclaimer: I have tested this myself and it works – no guarantees however that you won’t have unforeseen consequences.

Workaround:

In your Arduino folder, find the subfolder: ..\hardware\tools\avr\etc

Make a backup copy of the file: avrdude.conf

1. Open the file avrdude.conf in a text editor
2. Search for: 0x1e 0x95 0x0F (this is the ATmega328P signature)
3. Replace it with: 0x1e 0x95 0x14 (this is the ATmega328 signature)
4. Save the file 
5. Proceed as described previously (and use lock:w:0x0F:m)
6. Restore the avrdude.conf to it's original settings

Good Luck!! Good burnings!