OS X communicating with an Adafruit Gemma

Background/Problem

I bought an Adafruit Gemma to make a LED enhanced vest for my dog to wear during the dark part of the year up here in northern Europe, but I could not get it to talk to my OS X. When connecting it, the red LED did not blink, but instead gave off a steady red light.

An Adafruit Gemma.

As with my Adafruit Trinket, I tried with multiple cables without success.

Solution

I got a cheap USB 2.0 hub and connected it to my Adafruit Gemma through that one, and immediately the red LED started to blink to indicate that the boot-loader was operational!

A PlexGear USB 2.0 hub.

While it never showed up as a PORT menu option in Arduino IDE, I could load sketches in the same way as I did with my Adafruit Trinket:

1. Made sure I had the programmer set to USBTinyISP
2. Loaded up the Blink example sketch
3. Clicked the Gemma's reset button
4. Clicked the 'Upload' button from Arduino IDE.

Tada!

OS X communicating with an Adafruit Trinket

Background/Problem

Some time ago I bought an Adafruit Trinket (5V). But try as I might, I never got it to communicate with my OS X.

An Adafruit Trinket 5V

I tried with multiple Mini-USB cables I had lying about.. USB-hubs.. old macs, new macs.. You name it.. I never got to see it show up with a valid port in Arduino IDE.

Solution

I bought yet another USB hub together with a new mini-USB coord, and behold! The red-LED started to flash instead of just shining! Holding my breath I pulled up the PORT menu to check if I could finally see it there, but no, no such luck..

A PlexGear USB 2.0 hub.

Then I remembered that once when I had done some less clever programming that led my Adafruit Feather to refuse to show up when connected, the solution was to double click the reset button (starting the boot-loader) while uploading (less disruptive) code to it, and then the Feather once again showed up under available PORTs.

So this is how I finally got it to work:

1. Made sure I had the programmer set to USBTinyISP
2. Loaded up the Blink example sketch
3. Ensured that my Trinket was connected to the USB 2.0 hub
4. Clicked the Trinkets reset button
5. Clicked the 'Upload' button from Arduino IDE.

And while I never got the Trinket to show up under PORTs, the sketch was successfully loaded to my Trinket and it happily blinked at me!