Monday, February 19, 2018

Lobot A-Star Micro

Lobot on the A-Star Micro and Arduino Micro

The Lobot can also be used as an ISP programmer for the A-Star Micro from Pololu and the Arduino Micro clone.

The A-Star Micro is used in the Atreus. I replaced the bootloader on the Atreus I built with the LUFA Mass Storage bootloader. It would have been a lot easier to flash the bootloader with the Lobot.

The A-Star Micro is similar to the Pro Micro, but much smaller. It comes with the same Caterina type bootloader.

The only change is that the pogo pins are installed in the 6 pin ISP header location. I took apart a pin header and built a support. I doubled up the plastic shrouds to make it taller and soldered the pins on the ends to hold it in place.

 The Arduino Micro clone has the same ISP header.

Side view of the double stacked headers used as a support for the A-Star Micro when being programmed.

The ISP header pinout is fairly standard. It can probably be used to program other small AVR boards as well.

More info on the Lobot here.