I tried to update the firmware on my board a little earlier to the 2.01xe beta thinking that it might get rid of some strange behavior my arm had. About half way through the update failed and now the board doesn’t respond at all.
When i switch the power on nothing happens no green light and the servos don’t give that small nudge they used to give when power was applied.
When i launch the SSC software it sais it can’t find the board and endlessly tries to search. I saw that there was an options to update firmware via the jumper method but i tried that and i have no access at all to a way to update the firmware. Any clue as to whats going on here?
There is no need to assume anything. If you have the new chip it will say “mega168” and it will have a large V2 on the chip. If you have the old chip it will just say “mega8”.
It’s important to load the proper file. All of the programs that allow firmware programming have been updated to not allow the chip to be programmed with the wrong file. However if you are using an older version of LynxTerm, RIOS or SEQ it is possible. You should make sure you are using the latest version of the programs, remember updates are free. At this point it will be necessary to do the jumper firmware method. You will need to program the chip with the proper firmware file.
I used the latest ver of RIOS 1.04U when this happened.
I am trying to do the jumper update method but when i switch the jumper to the appropriate position and launch the software the firmware button is still grayed out. Am i missing something here or should this be done somewhere else?
Try using Lynxterm. It does not need to “connect” in order to do the upgrade.
o Jumper the baud rate jumpers for firmware upgrade
o Open Lynxterm
o Select Firmware
o Select Open
o browse to where the *.abl file is located and select either
1-06XE.abl for mega 8
2-01XE_BETA1.abl for mega 168
o Select Firmware Update
o Cross fingers and maybe say a little prayer.
I just rechecked all of those and no go, I never changed any of the jumpers other then the BAUD jumper for jumper firmware update so all of the jumpers are still in the same position as they where when the board was last working and the way i received it from lynxmotion.
i think you miss to power cycle the card before clicking “begin update”
i have tried all the process here, i can get this error message if i miss the step 2 : “power cycke the card”…
i was able to flash with the wrong firmware then restore to V1.06XE with lynxterm
use Lynxterm to correct this :
1 : set the jumper as describe in the jumper method picture
2 : power cycle the card (wait 5 second when off before switching on again)
3 : click begin update
it should work…let us know
note RIOS V1.05 will block wrong firmware update to avoid this issue
Lynxterm set to 115.2 kbaud for the software and I’m using a standard serial cable no usb to serial adapters. I even checked in windows to make sure the serial port was operating at 115.2 kbaud.
Um, could you check again the jumper position on the baud pins ?
it should cross the baud pins “near” the SSC-32 chip (close to the “BAUD” text) not near the servos pins.
maybe you can try with all servos disconnected.
…as the green led is no more enable, do you have a way to make sure the power supply is really on ? it could be a problem with the round power supply plug ?
please make sure there’s voltage on the SSC-32 card…dunno
Yup that was the first thing i thought of i happened to have a little LED light that plugs into a 9volt battery i took the 9volt battery adapter that came with the kit plugged it up to that and then attached the wire ends to the round power supply cable and the light turned on. So the power supply isn’t the culprit here.
I have also tried to do this with all the servos disconnected and still nothing happens.
I wonder if the 9v battery is low. I had a problem one time where I could not program my MCU (Micocontroller) even though the LED light was ON. I replaced the battery with a fresh one, and Walla! I was able to program it again.
Even though the 9v battery is not dead, it could have just enough power to light the LED but that’s about it. Is the battery new?
We have tested this and it does work. The only thing left is a low battery. Remove everything from the SSC-32 and power it only with a good fresh 9vdc battery on the VL input.
Just went to get a completely new pack of battery’s even tho the one i was using was brand new. I did exactly like you said unplugged everything from the SSC-32 using only power from the VL input of a brand new out of the box 9volt, followed the instruction for jumper firmware update, i first got the software update error then clicked yes to do jumper update i then removed one jumper and placed one along the word BAUD, then i unplugged the 9volt for 5 seconds to imitate the power cycle phase and hit update.
The status bar goes through the erasing, and writing phase but then when it hits verifying it errors and i get that original error i mentioned.
There is no doubt in my mind that this method does work its just not working for me =/
Also what i meant about the LED light was that it was attached to the battery adapter which was then attached directly to the power supply end provided with the kit, this was done to test the fact that current was coming from that power supply (i don’t have a volt meter handy right now) which it was.
