[avr-chat] Strange Timer Damage on ATMega16?

[Shashank Chintalagiri]

Hi
I've got some strange problem with the timers on an atmega16L. I'm
using timer1 to produce two pwm signals that go on to some other
circuitry that in general should not be drawing much current, and
certainly not more than say 10 mA. The pwms seem to be working fine as
long as the attached circuitry  (in specific, a motor driver) is
powered down and I see the variation in  voltage with pulse width as
expected. However, once the rest is turned on, the pwm outputs both
jump to 5v. I _think_ it used to work for sometime earlier before
going to 5 volts, but I cant say that for certain. Now the correlation
between the turning on of the switch and the change in the output of
the pwm pins is impossible to ignore.

Also, replacing the atmega with another one, it seems to work just
fine. I'll do some more testing to see if this one also starts
behaving this way after some use, but as of now it seems to be more
stable than the other one. The new atmega happens to be an atmega16
(as opposed to the 16L used initially). I dont see how that would make
a difference in this case, though. Both are using the internal
oscialltor.

Any ideas on what may have happened? Does anyone know of an atmega
getting damaged/behaving in this way? Most importantly, should i worry
about the same thing happening to next one also and make some changes
to the rest of the circuitry.

Thanks
Shashank
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Chintalagiri Shashank
Junior Undergraduate
Department of Physics
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

address@hidden
address@hidden
http://home.iitk.ac.in/~chintal
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