How to Program a Arduino Pro Mini W/o a Serial Adapter.

by A Homeschoolers Workbench

7.3K868

Intro: How to Program a Arduino Pro Mini W/o a Serial Adapter.

This is a simple and easy way to program a Pro mini w/o a serial adapter.

STEP 1: Things You Need.

1 Arduino Uno, Mega, Leonardo, Due, or Nano,

1 The Pro Mini you are going to program.

1 Usb cable With type A plug on one end and type B on the other.

5 jumper wires to connect the Pro Mini to the other board.

STEP 2: Wiring It.

Connect

Pro Mini | Programing board

Gnd Gnd

Vcc 5v (or 3.3 for a 3.3 board)

Tx Tx

Rx Rx

Gnd to Reset on the programing board

STEP 3: Programing.

Now it is ready to be programed in IDE select Pro Mini as the board.

Once the sketch is ready (no bugs) press upload, here is the tricky part as soon as it says uploading (not compiling) you must press the reset button on the Pro Mini.

This has worked for me, if you have any questions put them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them.

If you liked this you may like my Youtube channel

I hope this was useful to you, if you have an Instructable you want me to make let me know in the comments.

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6 Comments

elias-MC 5 years ago

even by pushing the reset butom it doesn't start uploading the program

avrdude: Version 6.3, compiled on Jan 17 2017 at 12:00:53
Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

System wide configuration file is "C:\Users\ELIAS\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\arduino\tools\avrdude\6.3.0-arduino9/etc/avrdude.conf"

Using Port : COM3
Using Programmer : arduino
Overriding Baud Rate : 57600
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 2 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 3 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 4 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 5 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 6 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 7 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 8 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 9 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x89

avrdude done. Thank you.

MD_iRobot 5 years ago

Excellent post. Thank you.

dragoneye65 6 years ago

Great instructable. It helped me to program the mini pro with ease.
Tip: Run a line from reset on the uno to the reset on the mini pro, that way you dont need to push the reset manually ;-)

Tank you! :-)

stannickel 7 years ago

I used the Arduino Uno to program my Pro Mini. One mistake I made was to use the Mini instead of Pro Mini. When I figured that out, then I was able to program my Pro Mini exactly the way you said. You mentioned that it is important to hit the reset button on the Pro Mini exactly at the time it says "Uploading". That is very important! Thanks for posting this excellent instructable! Now, I can program my various Pro Minis with my Uno and with my FTDI Serial Port Adapter.