Help with my simple DIY arduino board so I can put my store bought one away for safe keeping.

How are you trying to talk to the chip?

i've got a rs232 to usb dongle works great on a breadboard.  I bought it on ebay.  plugging it into the 5v/rxd/txd/ground (i left the 3v pin off of my header in my design.  want to plug it into the female header on the board, you can see where i have run the leads on the board from the chip to the header.  i have attached a pic of it here.

Attachments:

Did you check to verify if the Rxd and ~Txd are correctly orientated?

yes, connections for data transmission are correct.  My rs232 to usb is marked incorrectly. works perfectly on a breadboard (sometimes the rxd and txd are switched on the cheap chinese rs232 connectors) when my rxd is connected to pin 3 and my txd is connected to pin 2. 

The capacitors across the crystal indicates 0.22uF. That's about 10,000x too big. They should be more like 22pF. Is that just a typo? Oh and the overlay has resistor packages in these places where the caps should be but I guess you have actually got caps in you circuit.

yes it is a typo, they are both actually 22pf caps and they are "through hole ceramic caps" *that's the way fritzing represents them*.

Can we assume that:

1. LED 1 is lighting up brightly

2. All of the +5V and Gnd pins have been metered

3. The 328 is not running hot to the touch

4. Bootloader has been programmed (and verified) on the 328 (or the 328 has been transplanted from store-bought arduino)

5. Crystal is of (relatively) good quality

That'd be my first round checklist.

yes, the led is lighting up, i neglected to meter the pins (will do that straight away), the 328 is not hot, bootloader verified, the crystals i ordered from china on ebay, is there a reliable way to test them?

Seeing this made me think of your post:

http://www.amazon.com/Virtuabotix-Bareduino-Compatible-Microcontroller-Regulator/dp/tech-data/B007QGG1ZY/ref=de_a_smtd

looks like they have a similar thing going on, bare number of components.

The voltage regulator is a nice touch.

Mike

Not aware of easy reliable way to test xtal without expensive scope, coupling probes, and/or frequency counter [all available through element14 - plug ;-) ].

328 has a fuse bit that can bring out the clock on a pin. Hooking that pin up to a frequency counter (store bought arduino as a frequency counter?) is possible.

However, assuming you have metered 5V and Ground at all the expected places, the 328 really should be executing instructions already. Unless it is ringing-reset or in perma-reset.

So next thing I'd check is the RESET.  Your circuit has RESET floating, and then grounded through a 10k when the button is pressed. 

  1. Was this exact configuration working with your 328 in a breadboard?

  2. Could the button have been soldered on the "wrong side" and RESET is perma-grounded?  (verify with meter)

  3. Try hot jumpering a 10k from RESET to +5V, restart your board and see if anything changes.