Hello all, I received this tester yesterday and so far I'm happy with it for $22 prime Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OOQC2E8?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00#AskIt came preloaded with 1.12 and all the features work, the signal generator, PWM, and frequency counter was a bonus that I didn't expect. It's running the 328 chip and has the 8 MHz crystal also with a nice display. But it's missing the SPI for updating it, the good he's is I can remove the chip.
I have a friend coming to visit in October who ordered a different one from eBay, I need to look at the internals but I think it might be able to do more then it does now if I update it.
Then I realized I've never got into the programming part of these chips, I'm planning on using AVRDude and figured it's time to buy a programer now with this running the 328, my LED flashlights I build using the amtel tiny, and my 3D printers using the 1280/2560 chips. It would only be needed for the printers if I brick one to recover the boot loader. I'm also testing soldering station that are using the 328 chip and found some bug, they fixed it but now I have to wait on the slow boat from China for the new chip. If I had a programer they could have just emailed me the code to compile and I would have been back to testing again.
So my question is what would be a recommended programer that can do these style of chips? I'm trying to keep the price down on a budget and currently don't have a need to program PIC chips, just the different variety of amtel chips.
I see a lot of different kinds on Amazon, I try to stay off of eBay, just a preference. The only one I confirmed to do all these chips so far is about $70, but even if I get two $10 programmers because I know the 1280/2560 chips might need a programer just for that class I would rather do that for $20 and maybe a interface board for easy plug and program, then unplug.
Any suggestions are welcomed, thank you.
Oh, and after reading a few pages of this it looks like theirs is a 1.18 now so I guess I don't have the latest. Anything worth updating for fro the 1.12 to the 1.18?