Need help with Arduino for Hagiwo VCO

Hello,
This is my first time using an Arduino nano board (Atmega284p), I need it for the Hagiwo VCO build.
When I try to upload I get an error saying that the board is not responding.
Heres what I did so far:

  1. Connected board to computer via USB.
  2. Installed Arduino software.
  3. Selected port and board type.(shown as connected, LEDs on board turn on).
  4. Added VCO code to sketch, added mozzi library.
  5. Successfuly compiled the code.
  6. Tried to upload multiple times but failed.
  7. Tried to reinstall bootloader but failed for the same reason. (device not responding).
    I’m lost… Any ideas?

Is there really such a thing as an Atmega284p? There’s a Atmega1284p but I don’t know of any Nanos that use it. AFAIK they’re all 328p or 168.

Some Nano clones use a different bootloader than the official ones, there’s a menu item to select “old bootloader” in that case. Try both.

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are you sure where the problem is located?
I recently had a wild ride with win11 and arduino drivers. i had to use older drivers and tried several itterations till i found a working one.

TL;DR: try a different pc preferably with a different OS

You are correct, It’s 328p, my bad.

I see. Will try that.
starting to think that digital modules are too much of a hassle for me.

Is it a genuine Nano or a Chinese clone? Have you installed the 340 chip driver if it’s a Chinese clone and set to old bootloader?

I’m pretty sure that It’s a Chinese clone. It’s my first attempt with Arduino (or clone), so I was not aware that it needs a special driver, since the Arduino software did recognize a connected device. I’ll give it a go.

Switching to the old bootloader seems to do the trick. Thanks!
I’m attempting to build an adaptation of Hagiwo’s design (actually It’s a mixture of his 3 Arduino VCOs) made by someone on Github named Test Bild.
Unfortunately there seems to be a discrepancy between the schematics and the board design, as the scematics mentions 5 100nf caps while the board only has 3 such footprints. And since It’s a Github, I can’t contact the author directly.
Did anyone try this specific build or can advise?

path1

On the schematic I see:

C1, C10, C11, C12 4.7nF
C2 10 nF
C3 4.7 µF
C4, C6 10 µF
C5, C7, C8 100 nF
C9 220 nF

I would imagine they are just decoupling caps being but I just checked the schematics before I read another reply properly and there are only 3 x 100nf caps

Thanks for taking a look. Note that you can scroll down in the schematic and see two additional 100n caps. (13,14)

Sorry, missed that.

In the KiCad files I see 5 100 nF caps on the PCBs (including one labeled 0.1 uF)

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Indeed. But the main board Gerber was also updated (per Github) so It’s really confusing. I posted an issue on Github (thanks for clarifying that)

I don’t see the problem. The schematic says there’s five, the PCBs have five footprints. (Two on the main board are silkscreened on the other side for some reason.)

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The schematic and BOM are older than the Gerber, so perhaps the 2 caps were omitted on purpose but the BOM and schematic were not updated.

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Ah, I finally see what you’re talking about — there are five in the schematic and in the KiCad design file but two are missing from the Gerbers. There are other discrepancies as well.

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Exactly. I’ll wait a bit to see if Test Bild replies to my submitted issue, and if that doesn’t happen, I’ll finish the build as-is and see what happens. Thanks for helping out!

I have a fair amount of experience with Nano+Mozzi & HAGIWO builds, they tend to work pretty well. Very forgiving circuit. Even designed my prototype board for Mozzi a while ago (i will do a v2 with fewer issues eventually)

In addition to Testbild’s schematic, you should consider cross-referencing Pansapiens’, which does things a bit differently, and is easier to read:

Don’t sweat the capacitors, except for the one in the output path, none of them make or break the circuit.

One gotcha you might run into that nobody seems to bother to document: Mozzi has to run in HIFI mode. You have to edit a C++ header to make that happen.

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Thanks!
A bit of a shame I know about this after fabricating the boards and being halfway through the build, but there’s always next time, I guess.
About the importance of parts, the Testbild version specifies a %0.5 tolerance for two of the resistors.
I only have %1 tolerance resistors, how bad is that?

Regarding the HIFI mode, I assume that Testbild’s code already has it, but just in case, what should I look for? (assuming I’m not a code person)

The precision of the output resistors is crucial to the Dual PWM output that Mozzi uses.

If you have a bunch of resistors, just measure them to get as close as possible. Don’t forget that you can produce 499K by using two 1M in parallel, and 3.9K with a 4.7K and 22K in parallel.

Personally I bought a bag of 499K and test them before use (those that don’t make the cut end up in circuits that require a pulldown resistors where the value doesn’t matter.)

The other resistor values shouldn’t be too sensitive, except for the voltage divider on the gain input