Some TriGorilla boards do not come with a bootloader installed. If yours is one of them you will get a “avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout” error when trying to upload the firmware.
To install a bootloader you will need an Ardunio UNO R3 with some jumper wires to flash the bootloader. This is a one-time thing and is quick to do. You will also need our Bootloader Flashing package which you can get below:
Click here to download the Bootloader Flashing Package
You will connect the ISP pins on the TriGorilla SCK, MISO, MOSI, GND, and VCC pins to the UNO ISP header on its SCK, MISO, MOSI, GND, and VCC pins. The RESET pin on the Trigorilla board will connect to the D10 pin on the UNO R3 board.
Extract the files from the Bootloader Flashing download to your computer. This guide uses Windows. If you are on Mac OS see our Mac OS Guide for setting up the Arduino IDE. Then double-click the “OpenBootloaderWindows.bat” file and this will load the IDE and ArduinoISP sketch.
Plug the USB for the UNO R3 board into your PC.
In the Arduino IDE select the Tools menu and then Arduino Uno from the board menu and select the COM port that the UNO is plugged into.
If you have multiple COM ports and are not sure what one the UNO is make a note of the ports listed and then unplug the UNO. Close the menu and re-open it to see what one disappeared. The one that disappeared is the UNO COM port. Then plug the UNO back in and re-open the Tools menu and select the COM port for the UNO.
Now with the Board selected and the COM port set click the upload button to flash the UNO with the programmer sketch. This will take about 15 seconds.
Once it is done you will see Done Uploading.
Now unplug the UNO USB cable and plug it back in. Now we need to burn the bootloader to the printer board. At this point, you should have the UNO connected to the printer board via jumper wires with the information at the top of this guide.
Go back into the Tools menu and make sure the board is now set to Arduino Mega 2560 and the Processor is ATmega 2560 (Mega 2560). Make sure the COM port is the UNO COM port we selected earlier. The programmer should be Ardunio as ISP.
Once those settings are verified click “Burn Bootloader”.
If you did all the steps correctly it will take about 30 seconds to burn the bootloader and it will report that it is done in the status window at the bottom of the Arduino IDE.
At this point, you can disconnect the UNO from your computer and the printer control board. Now your board has a bootloader on it and you can install the firmware as normal through Visual Studio Code.
