Is it safe to use DigiSpark-modded Arduino IDE with "normal" Arduinos?

[Tommy_2Tall]

Hi!

I just wanted to check if the Arduino IDE with Digispark modifications might have some nasty side effects or if I have just gotten a bad deal with my Arduino Nano v3 clone ("Funduino" but no way of telling who actually made it).

Could there be anything in the upload process that somehow messes with the internal EEPROM of the FTDI 232R chipset?

I did my first initial tests with the DigiSpark IDE because I was too lazy to download an unmodded version of the IDE and after a few succesful uploads I disconnected and reconnected it.. and then it was listed as an "FT232R USB UART" without drivers and the USB VID/PID had changed from (I assume) the original 0403/6001 to 0403/0000.

I have no idea if I have accidentally shorted some of the exposed pins or if the upload process in some weird way affected the FTDI chipset instead of just the MCU..

The only difference I can think of is the micronucleus uploader instead of the normal (serial) programming method and the size of the bootloader.. but those should just affect the addressing/writing to the MCU and not the FTDI chipset.

I have fixed it temporarily by modifying the PID in the driver installation files (.inf) and if I gather enough courage I might give FTDI's MProg utility a go to see if I can restore/write the original PID to the EEPROM.

Right now I just want to know what could have caused it so I can avoid this in the future. :-)

[DeuxVis]

I have no idea if this is related to your problem, but if you follow the arduino installation procedure for digispark pro at http://digistump.com/wiki/digispark/tutorials/connectingpro you will have a standard arduino suite with digispark as an added library, as opposed to a custom distribution of arduino software that was released for the "old" digispark.

And this new setup works for programming "old" digisparks too.

[gogol]

Here is the explanation:

http://hackaday.com/2014/10/22/watch-that-windows-update-ftdi-drivers-are-killing-fake-chips/
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2014/10/22/ftdi-drivers-brick-counterfeit-chips-with-latest-windows-update/

It is just Windows update, providing you with a new FTDI-driver, which bricks counterfeited chips .....

[digistump]

The Digispark version IDEs will never harm your other hardware (unless the Arduino regular IDE would do the same) - they are just the Arduino IDE with our support added, nothing else disabled, crippled or changed