Is there any way to program an arduino nano without the USB port or ICSP headers?

I was wondering if there was a way to program an arduino nano without using the USB port on it or its ICSP headers. My arduino's USB port broke off and i don't have a programmer for the ICSP pins. Is there a way to program it with another arduino? If so, it would be great if you could point me in the right direction. Thanks!

Comments

[Libahunt]

I suggest if the part that broke off is only usb socket and the board near the ftdi chip is not broken, then it is probably easiest to repair it (with bought new usb socket or just some cable cut in half).

[Robot Lover]

Thanks for the input! Although I forgot to mention that the USB's traces were ripped off with the USB plug. I have a hot air rework station but there is no use trying to fix it. I will give it a shot though!

[Toby Robb]

Actually I have no problem using another arduino board, they have an FTDI chip on them, which gives you a serial programmer. Remove the atmega chip from the spare board then u can use the 0 and 1 pins as a serial port. Begin the compile, then when it starts to upload, press the rest pin on the target board, should begin uploading, may take a couple of goes to get the timing right.

[andy]

In short, no - you will need to use either USB or ICSP to program it, but read on, there may be a solution...

If you have access to a soldering iron you can create a simple ICSP programmer with little more that a serial cable and a few resistors, there is a tutorial here (http://origa.me.uk/content/simple-serial-icsp-pic-programmer)  for a pic programmer - the same circuit seems to be suggested elsewhere as an AVR programmer so you should be good (can some one verify this?). You will need some software to go with that, but a quick google seems to indicate there is a few about.

As a side note there are some cool things where you can tell the Atmega chip how to be programmed (the arduino bootloader does this, telling the atmega chip how to pull data from the serial connection to your computer).

You can replace the USB functionality with a usb serial connection - arduino compatable devices are available on ebay and other sites and they usually don't break the bank. On ebay I picked up a few arduino nanos for £10 each, so it may be more economical to do that.

Thanks,
Drew

[steveastrouk]

+1