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Programming arduino with an external programmer

Connecting arduino with an external programmer

In this quick tutorial we will see how to program our arduino board with the help of an external programmer and not by using the arduino bootloader.
Before proceeding with this tutorial take a look at the "burn arduino with usb tiny" tutorial.
The first thing you have to understand is that by uploading a program with an external programmer you are going to lose your already burned bootloader on your ATMEGA chip.
So before proceeding make sure you can bootload your chips using your external programmer.

This method works with the newest arduino GUI 1.0.1 . If you are using older versions take a look at the next page.

The first step is to connect our usb tiny with the arduino board using the ICSP header tag.

Connecting arduino board with usbtiny

Once connected the arduino with the programmer, connect the usb tiny board with your computer .
Both of the boards should now be powered up.

Load the blink demo or any other demo just for testing.

Select a demo program

 

Now select your arduino board from arduino GUI like the photo below.

Select arduino board

Now select the programmer. In our case is the USB tiny

Select programmer

Now click File -> Upload using programmer

Upload using external programmer

You should be able to upload the sketch on your arduino board.
Notice that by doing this the arduino bootloader is lost.
If you want to upload your sketch normally you should re-burn your chip as we have already demonstrated at this article.

In the next page we will see the same procedure using the 0.2.2 arduino GUI and a video demonstration.