Using an AVR ISP Mk II with the Arduino IDE

It is possible to program an AVR on an Arduino board using the AVR ISP Mk II programmer directly from the Arduino IDE. The process is faster and an Arduino bootloader is not required to be loaded on the AVR, so you can program AVRs purchased from Mouser, Digikey, etc and then transfer them to a permanent circuit board.

Simply edit boards.txt (location varies-- try searching your root arduino software folder) and add:

atmega328ii.name=Arduino Duemilanove ATmega328 AVR ISP Mk II

atmega328ii.upload.protocol=stk500
atmega328ii.upload.maximum_size=30720
atmega328ii.upload.speed=57600

atmega328ii.upload.using=avrispmkii
atmega328ii.build.mcu=atmega328p
atmega328ii.build.f_cpu=16000000L
atmega328ii.build.core=arduino

##############################################################

Then you can go to Tools>Boards> and select ATMega 328 ISP from the list. Attach your AVR ISP Mk II to the Arduino board (make sure the orientation is correct-- both of the AVR and the ISP cable). Hit program as normal. Voila!