Use a Mega 2560 as an ISP
This is the first step in the series Code Loading an Arduino over Bluetooth.
The first step in replacing the boot loader on an Arduino board is having an In System Programmer (ISP). This tutorial will show you how to use another Mega 2560 to replace the boot loader of a Mega 2560. This requires a little cabling. You can either do this with six wire jumpers or a standard six pin cable and a little surgery. This is based on the tutorial here.
The ICSP Pins
First, have a look at your Mega 2560 and find the ICSP pins. This is a 2 x 3 group of pins next to the processor. Note the white mark in the upper left corner marking pin 1. The pins are laid out as follows:
Connecting the Pins
You can simply wire jumpers from board to board using these pins with a single exception. The reset pin of the target Mega 2560 must be wired to pin 10 of the programmer Mega 2560. Since five of these wires are straight through, you might use a six pin connector and simply cut pin 5 and solder on a jumper.
In addition, the Arduino tutorial referenced above has instructions to use pins 7, 8, and 9 as indicators of the burning process if you’re interested, but I won’t go into them here.
Use a Mega 2560 as an ISP
The 5v of power should be sufficient from the programmer board to power the target board. If you run into issues, though, the forums say sometimes there’s not enough power and you may need to power the target board separately. Please comment if you run into this.
Have a look at Step 2, Load MegaCore with Optiboot as the Boot Loader for a Mega 2560.
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