Sunday, March 8, 2015

FS-T6 firmware upgrade

As we are working on FS-T6 custom FW (called AR-T6) we are trying to provide an easy path for early adaptors. Here is how to program the AR-T6 firmware  into your Tx or revert to the original. Both without opening the case.


What is needed:
- stm32flash utility (can be build on linux and windows) or a STM loader demonstrator
- compiled ar-t6.bin or original fs-t6.bin fw
- serial port or usb-to-serial adapter
- some means to connect adapter's leads to the port on FS-T6
- some knowledge of cmd line on linux




Connections:
BLACK - GND to the S-Video ring
WHITE - PC Rx to T6's Tx
GREEN - PC Tx to T6's Rx
(see: student cable for connections)

Note that to get a good grounding I had to bend the pin of black ground wire and wedged it into the space.
Also note that the connection is potentially very flaky and may soft-brick your Tx if interrupted in the middle (recovery possible but only with an SWD cable). A safer way would be to use a CT6B cable or to make a custom cable from an S-Video one...as described here)













Linux

check connection:

~/stm32flash$ sudo ./stm32flash /dev/ttyUSB0
stm32flash 0.4

http://stm32flash.googlecode.com/

Interface serial_posix: 57600 8E1
Version      : 0x22
Option 1     : 0x00
Option 2     : 0x00
Device ID    : 0x0420 (Medium-density VL)
- RAM        : 8KiB  (512b reserved by bootloader)
- Flash      : 128KiB (sector size: 4x1024)
- Option RAM : 16b
- System RAM : 2KiB


To program custom fw:
~/stm32flash$ sudo ./stm32flash -w ar-t6.bin -v /dev/ttyUSB0
stm32flash 0.4

http://stm32flash.googlecode.com/

Using Parser : Raw BINARY
Interface serial_posix: 57600 8E1
Version      : 0x22
Option 1     : 0x00
Option 2     : 0x00
Device ID    : 0x0420 (Medium-density VL)
- RAM        : 8KiB  (512b reserved by bootloader)
- Flash      : 128KiB (sector size: 4x1024)
- Option RAM : 16b
- System RAM : 2KiB
Write to memory
Erasing memory
Wrote and verified address 0x0800f178 (100.00%) Done.



To program custom fw:
~/stm32flash$ sudo ./stm32flash -w fs-t6.bin -v /dev/ttyUSB0
...


In Original FW you go to Menu, System, scrol down to "Firmware Upgrade".
In AR-T6 go to Menu, System, Version page, Menu (pres&hold SELect roller).


Thanks go to Martin, here is his writeup.