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Resurrection of broken UNOs

In one unnamed school in a galaxy far far away (but you know who you are), a non-science person decided to design a science lab or two. There were glaring errors and gaping holes (figuratively not literally), not least of which were stainless steel laboratory benches (modelled on an abattoir?)

There were also some unexpected discussions about the legitimacy and cost of fume cupboards in science laboratories (you know, because it is entirely fiscally reasonable that student and staff safety can be measured on some linked monetary scale).

And so when an "Actual Science  Teacher"™ came to use the lab, it transpired that some students inadvertently rested powered UNOs (used to monitor physical experiments) on these famously conductive surfaces, and then  they predictably blew up! What an unexpected plot twist.

Rescuing the UNOs from the bin was the easy part - figuring out what to do with them took a few years (not actually true - it was sloth). Just recently when I was cleaning up the workshop, I found a small brown paper bag with two such fried UNOs and had to make the decision to either turf them out (Nooooooo!), or try a few things to resurrect them.

The classic first step in such a resurrection attempt was to de-solder the ATMega328pa-au chip and throw in, for instance, an ATMega168 or ATMega88 analog for lolz.

I was a little disappointed that the computer didn't recognise the USB port in one of the reclaimed devices, and with the other UNO the port was recognised, but it wouldn't connect enough to allow programming or boot loader burning. This may indicate that more than the main chip had been fried in the great stainless steel science lab bench debacle of the 21st Century.

With a USBASP to the rescue, I was able to burn a bootloader and also program the ATMega88 chips in situ (using at first the internal 8MHz timer, and then later the 16MHz external crystal on the UNO). So that counts as a win I think.

I already have a project in mind for at least one of the reconditioned units - watch this space.