Arduino Nano flashed with internal 8mhz - Serial Problems

[morpheus19900]

Hi, I used the MiniCore boards to flash the bootloader version that provides 8mhz internally on an Arduino Nano. I flashed using an Arduino UNO connected via ISP to the Arduino Nano that hosts the new bootloader. Everything happened correctly also because with some tools I read the Fuse bits setting and they are like this:

10:18:33.740 -> LFuse = 0xE2 10:18:33.740 -> HFuse = 0xD7 10:18:33.740 -> EFuse = 0xFD

The crucial point is that I'm having big problems with the Serial. In fact, even if I try different baud rates of 9600 or 4800 etc., unfortunately the Serial prints strange characters as if there was a discrepancy between the two speeds of the microcontroller and the serial monitor, even though they are set the same for both. Obviously when I load a sketch, I set "ATMEGA328" as the board and "Internal 8Mhz" as the clock. I leave the Baudrate "few" (in italian appears "pochi") even if I tried to change it without solving anything. How could this problem be solved? Thanks.

[MCUdude]

The problem is that the internal oscillator isn't very accurate, and would need calibration in order to work. For this you'll have to use the OSCCAL register. Try this piece of code to see what the ideal OSCCAL value would be:

 OSCCAL = OSCCAL - 10;

while(OSCCAL < 0x7F) {
  OSCCAL++;
  Serial.printf("New OSCCAL value is 0x%02x\n", OSCCAL);
  delay(1000);
}

At the start of every program you'll have to write the correct value to the OSCCAL register: OSCCAL = [some_value];

[morpheus19900]

Thank you so much I solved it! Initially your code did not print any value. I modified it like this and I found readable values ​​to set OSCCAL in order to have a clear reading of the Serial. I set it for 40 values.

Thanks again!

void setup() {
  delay(1000);

  Serial.begin(1200);  
  delay(1000);

  uint8_t original_osccal = OSCCAL;
  uint8_t start_value = original_osccal - 20;  

  for(uint8_t i = 0; i < 40; i++) {  // Test di 40 valori
    uint8_t test_value = start_value + i;
    OSCCAL = test_value;
    delay(1000);  

    for(int j = 0; j < 5; j++) {
      Serial.write('=');
    }
    Serial.write(' ');
    Serial.write('0' + (test_value / 100));     
    Serial.write('0' + ((test_value / 10) % 10)); 
    Serial.write('0' + (test_value % 10));       
    Serial.write(' ');
    for(int j = 0; j < 5; j++) {
      Serial.write('=');
    }
    Serial.write('\n');
  }

  OSCCAL = original_osccal;
}

void loop() {
}

[MCUdude]

Great to hear you figured it out!