30 replies to this topic

[SteveS]

OK. I have five or six Mini devices I want to upgrade to 4.2.0.0 I have the correct SDK, MicroFramework etc installed. I have downloaded the firmware for all the models (except the Go) and extracted then to separate folders. I have a mini232 and a miniTTL folder. I have successfully updated the firmware on my netduino boards and plus boards. I place the mini into a dev board (from SKPang) since that gives me easy connection to serial port and power. My machine is Win7 32 bit. I clear the flash by connecting the gold pad to 5v. Power cycle board. Run samba 2.12, tell it there is a 7x512 on COM1. Exec the two scripts (boot from flash, enable flash access. Select 232 version of tiny booter bin file, and send file to device. Select "No" whan asked about locking device. Verify image against device. Exit SAM-BA. Power cycle board. Run MFDeploy from 4.2 MF tools Ping COM1 which shows as 4.2.0.0 tinybooter select ER_CONFIG and deploy it. Power cycle device Ping COM1 which shows as 4.2.0.0 tinybooter select ER_FLASH and deploy it. After flashing, MF display displays C (which is first part of Checking signature). Board then fails to respond. Power-cycling the board and pinging it results in Pinging... Error: No response from device and device is 'bricked'. I can recover it by repeating the erase/flash, but I can never get it to ping after updating the firmware. Now, this applies to more than one mini, so not a faulty device.. Any suggestions as to what is going wrong? I don't undertsnad why the booter and the config go across OK, but not the flash, which would to me imply the cable etc is OK. I will try flashing with an older (4.1) FW, and see what I get, but hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. I realise that the ER_FLASH files for TTL and 232 are different. Presumably if I flash the TTL ones, I should be able to see the device from USB ? Any help on this would be gratefully received. It was all going so well.... Steve

[Chris Walker]

Hi Steve,

Any help on this would be gratefully received. It was all going so well....

Just to confirm...did you flash both TinyBooter and TinyCLR from the "RS232" firmware zip file?

Chris

[Dr Who]

Hello! My thoughts exactly. I have one Mini here, and one of the others. I have not done anything to either of them yet. Now about that dev board for the Mini. Who's that company again? And where can I find them? I normally plug it into one of two bread boards and follow up from there. I'll leave out how I did the same for later, that of flashing 4.1 firmware back to the device when I had a problem. It was similar to the steps for installing new firmware to the device.

[SteveS]

Hi Steve,


Just to confirm...did you flash both TinyBooter and TinyCLR from the "RS232" firmware zip file?

Chris

Of course. I've been married twice, so I'm used to following instructions now

[TinkeringTurtle]

Hello!
My thoughts exactly. I have one Mini here, and one of the others. I have not done anything to either of them yet. Now about that dev board for the Mini. Who's that company again? And where can I find them?

There's several sources for development boards if you search for a "Basic 2 Stamp" board that work well. They range from $15 to $100 so it really depends what type of board and functionality you want. Look at offerings from Parallax and Sparkfun for starters.

[Dr Who]

There's several sources for development boards if you search for a "Basic 2 Stamp" board that work well. They range from $15 to $100 so it really depends what type of board and functionality you want. Look at offerings from Parallax and Sparkfun for starters.

Hello!
Sadly neither of those work. They are both either occupied boards in case of the one Sparkfun is reselling or the supercarrier one, that DIgi is selling at strange prices is largely not appropriate for the Mini. I asked about a specific one.

[awaiK]

Hi,

I'm aware of two netduino Mini Dev Boards:
SK Pang electronics' Netduino Mini Dev Board and
SYNAPSE SOLUTIONS GROUP's Netduino Mini Breakout Board

[Dr Who]

Hi,

I'm aware of two netduino Mini Dev Boards:
SK Pang electronics' Netduino Mini Dev Board and
SYNAPSE SOLUTIONS GROUP's Netduino Mini Breakout Board

Hello!
That's the ticket. The first one was indeed the one I was thinking of. The second one, while its a good thought, but the firm needs to work harder on its designs.

Incidentally Parallax makes the StampDunio a board which translates the BS2 into an Ardunio shape (what else?) and it happens that the Mini does indeed fit into the BS2 style.....

[SteveS]

The SK Pang one is the one I'm using. I like it, because you can choose USB vs EXT power, a simple female-female null modem cable works for the serial port, and there's a handy connector for TX0/RX0 as well as the pinouts. The only thing about it I'd change would be a ZIF socket for the mini itself. And to get back to my original issue, I am going to try and reflash a mini to 4.1 and see if that works. If it doesn't, I obviously have a problem with my mini setup, although a 2,3,5 connection on the serial port is difficult to get wrong if SAM-BA works (which it does). If that does fail, I have an XP machine which I can install 4.2 onto, and see if it's a Win7x86 issue. I deliberably chose to do this on a 32 bit machine in case there were 64-bit issues. So much for that cunning plan... Steve

[Fred]

Try the "push the button when connecting to MFDeploy" trick. That worked for my very similar Netduino Plus flashing problems. http://forums.netdui...__fromsearch__1

[SteveS]

Try the "push the button when connecting to MFDeploy" trick. That worked for my very similar Netduino Plus flashing problems.

My problem with that is that on a Mini, there is no button (on a DIP package, no one can hear me scream...)

Looking at the N/N+ schematics, it looks like that would be wired to PA29.
From the mini schematics, this looks like the DTR line is connected there, so maybe I can do something with that. I do know that the dev board I have doesn't have DTR wired from the serial port (as it's only a 3-wire serial connect).

If anyone has already done this, it would be useful to know. I'll see if I can work something out, and post my results here to share.

Steve

[SteveS]

Oh, and on the subject of the SK Pang dev board, I now have an elevated ZIF socket adaptor which uses heatshrink wrapped long pinned sockets. Now I don't need to worry about damaging my Minis. Steve

[Chris Walker]

Hi SteveS, The DTR pin is useful for kicking the Netduino Mini into TinyBooter during powerup...but you'll want to drive the RESET pin low instead to reset the Netduino Mini. Chris

[SteveS]

Hi SteveS,

The DTR pin is useful for kicking the Netduino Mini into TinyBooter during powerup...but you'll want to drive the RESET pin low instead to reset the Netduino Mini.

Chris

[fx: slaps forehead]
Yes, I will, won't I?

On the other hand, if I put it into TinyBooter mode, I can then make sure that MFDeploy can then see it, which currently, it can't. If it does, and I click 'Erase', does that actually wipe ER_CONFIG and ER_FLASH from the device, or just the application (if any)?

When I write ER_FLASH, it (MFDeploy) does tell me at the end, via a dialog box, that it's starting the application. This is news to me, since I haven't deployed one yet...

Steve

[nakchak]

I think in bootloader mode mfdeploy asks if you want to erase firmware or deployment (or both as it uses checkboxs) Nak.

[Fred]

My problem with that is that on a Mini, there is no button (on a DIP package, no one can hear me scream...)

Doh! Where's an embarassed smiley when you need one? Of course there isn't.

[SteveS]

Doh! Where's an embarassed smiley when you need one? Of course there isn't.

Don't worry, I have quite a collection of them...

OK. More progress of a sort. I can force the device into TinyBooter mode, not surpisingly.
I can also reflash the 4.1 tinybooter, and 4.1 RS232 firmware, and it all works perfectly.

So, my original question stands, what am I doing wrong?
I notice that in the 4.1 f/w download, there are .sig files, but not in 4.2

Also, is it significant that when flashing the 232 image for 4.2, I don't get the 'Chk signature' message?
To me it looks as though something is either eating the output, or supressing it from the device.

I'm _pretty_ sure I haven't confused the TTL and RS232 f/w, but if I had, would I see this kind of behaviour?

SteveS

[SteveS]

OK, I haven't confused them. Are there alternative f/w 4.2 files I can try, or can I connect via PuTTY and see what's being spat out of the serial port (if anything)? If so, what baud rate will I need?

[Chris Walker]

Hi Steve, We're doing some testing... It looks like there might be a weird compile error with the RS232 firmware. We tested the firmware (as a release candidate) before shipping it, but then recompiled it without the RC tag...something may have gotten corrupted. I'm told that the TTL firmware is working properly. You might be able to flash that and then change the transport to RS232 (using TTL). We're investigating, and hope to have a resolution soon... Chris

[SteveS]

I'm told that the TTL firmware is working properly. You might be able to flash that and then change the transport to RS232 (using TTL). We're investigating, and hope to have a resolution soon...

Chris

That's reassuring to hear.
I'll try the TTL firmware. Luckily for me, the dev board has a USB connection on it as well, so I don't even have to dig out a TTL cable.

I'll get the instructions for the TTL install, try that, and post the results here. Since I'm only upgrading a few Mini devices, that extra step won't be too much hassle, providing I can change the transport successfully.

SteveS