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 First you have to connect the FTDI cabel right. As i rember you have to have the backside of the FTDI facing up when you connect it to the board.

Then you have to chouse the right board in arduino and the right serial port

Your correct, there should be 'no signess of life' when you first plug up the emonTx. It's shipped with no code uploaded. If you have a multimeter you can check that you get 3.3V between 3.3V rail and GND and 5V between PWR rail and GND, see the 4 x JeePort connectors surrounding the ATmega. 

Appologies for the missed resistor. If you can't get hold of one drop me an email That resistor is needed for the autoreset to work when uploading code. That is probably the problem. Other things to try are:

Make sure 'uno' is selected under tools>board in Arduino IDE

Make sure FTDI cable is the right way round and drivers are installing. I've only used the FTDI cable on Lunux, no dirvers are required. I have no idea about windows. Does anyone know, are drives required?

I would recomend using Ubuntu, it seems to be the most trouble free OS for Arduino uploading. Arduino 1.0 works out of the box. 

I'm away next week with dubious internet connection, so will proable be slow replying. 

Good luck!

Thanks Glyn - I will be able to get some resistors this morning from Maplins, and will try that, and will also check the voltages.

I assume the FTDI cable need the component side up when plugged into the TX.

I actually use Ubuntu as my day-to-day OS, only ended in Windows just to eliminate the driver query, but it's good to know that it doesn't need drivers for thr ftdi cable.

"borrowed" a 10K resistor from the Nanode RF kit, which I havent built up yet.

All the voltages check out on the jeeport both 5V and 3.3V on all 4 sets of pads.

I can see the programmer getting picked though dmesg, but still nothing when trying to upload a sketch.

Gonna build up the Nanode RF this afternoon, and see where that gets me.

--> but still nothing when trying to upload a sketch.

How do you check that its working, did you open the serial monitor and see if anything gets printed?

 Oh dear. Double check that the GND pin on the FTDI adapter needs to align with GND pin on the FTDI connector. If your still having trouble, please post a photo of the board. 

Yeah, if you build up the NanodeRF and manage a succesful upload at least then we know the problem is with the emonTx not the FTDI programmer or the computer. 

Ok, that's been a long evening..

But I now have a working emonTX with loaded firmware, and the green LED blinks evey few seconds :-), and a Emonbase with firmware loaded as well.

Next step is to verify wireless and ethernet connectivity.

It looks like the problem was due to nothing more than my ham-fisted soldering on the  FTDI connection on the emonTX.

Many many thanks for your assistance in helping me sort this...

 If can help anyboy, the FTDI under windows7 need a driver 

i use this one http://store.extremeelectronics.co.in/USB-to-UART-Bridge-CP2102-Based.html

Denis

 Try: http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx