Dear all,
I am in the process of building my first project using microcontrollers. I bought Picaxe chips as I thought they would be a great start since they use simple Basic commands unlike Arduino which uses C+. So, to make long story short. I have read the manuals on Picaxe's website and soldered the board following the circuit depicted in the manual.

Then I downloaded the latest Picaxe editor 6 software from the official website and installed it on my computer. I wrote a simple program which turns the led on and off. Run the simulator in the software. It worked and showed the specific output to go high and low as expected.

Now, I decided to download the program into the chip itself. Bad news starts here. To my surprise, the download failed. The program gives me "Hardware not found on COM1 port" error message. I was shocked at first.

Then I started troubleshooting process. I returned to the manual and read the part about solving such issues. It said I had to do several steps, including checking the soldering, hard reset, battery check, testing USB download cable etc. Believe me, I have gone through all that steps and even gone a little further. I have double, triple checked every part of the circuit board. I have gone online to search for answers on the Internet if someone had gone through this before. I found couple of threads that addressed this problem. Luckily, I was not the only one who had faced this problem. I followed every step of instructions that smart guys out there were giving to poor folks like me to resolve the issue. But, again, to my surprise, it did not work for me. It did not work for me but for those fellas who posted those threads. Now, I am thinking that I am the unluckiest guy in this world with these Picaxe chips ))

I am creating this thread because the last thread about this issue is 5 years old and there is no chance that someone will answer that thread anymore. So, either I will build this project or throw away those chips that cost me $$ to trash.
Thank you for reading this.

 

We have a number of very good articles on PICAXE here on AAC; doing a search brings up this list. Start with Introducing the PICAXE System and move on from there.

If something is working for everyone else but not for you, that's an indication there's something you've overlooked or are doing wrong; most likely it's something simple. Just start over, from the beginning, and work carefully step-by-step. You'll get it working before long.

 

Try the picaxe forum.
http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?2-Active-PICAXE-Forum
Regards, Twohats..

 

Are you sure that the device USB connection is on COM1:?

I know that the Arduino IDE needs to select the proper port to upload a program. I am not familiar with Picaxe Editor 6, but does it have somewhere to configure it?

The error says it cannot find a device on COM1:; I'd first confirm if the device WAS connected to COM1: before I panicked.

 

We have a number of very good articles on PICAXE here on AAC; doing a search brings up this list. Start with Introducing the PICAXE System and move on from there.

If something is working for everyone else but not for you, that's an indication there's something you've overlooked or are doing wrong; most likely it's something simple. Just start over, from the beginning, and work carefully step-by-step. You'll get it working before long.

Thank you, OBW0549. I followed your good advice and went from the very beginning and moved along slowly step-by-step. Everything seemed OK this time again. The last checkpoint was the stereo socket that connects the board to a computer via USB cable. I had a closer look at it from different angles and guess what? I soldered wires to "b" and "c" pins of the socket wrong. When I was working on this project the first time my brain assumed that the socket pictured on the download circuit was pictured "bottoms up", i.e. "Bottom view" and refused to read the sign on top of it which clearly read "Above view". So, I soldered the ground wire to "b" and serial in wire that comes from two resistors to "c". To make it clear I am attaching screenshot of this circuit from the Picaxe manual. I think it is a mistake only some like me new to microcontrollers can make and I would like to warn anyone who is going to work with these microcontrollers not to make such a mistake. Or better yet, it can be another checkpoint in troubleshooting.

Everything is working just fine now!!!

Thank you all for comments.

 

To make it clear I am attaching screenshot of this circuit from the Picaxe manual. I think it is a mistake only some like me new to microcontrollers can make...

Ummm... not so. I've been doing electronics since back in the 1950's, including almost 40 years as an engineer, and I still do stuff like that from time to time. In fact, most of the time when I've made a mistake, that's exactly the kind of mistake I've made: overlooking some silly, obscure little detail. So don't feel bad; it's not a "newbie" thing.

Or better yet, it can be another checkpoint in troubleshooting.

In my experience, it's a good strategy to make that the first item in troubleshooting because, at least for me, that's the most likely cause of the problem.

Glad to see you got it working. Enjoy!