Topic: A4 Drop Card Issues - Jig Reflash Thread - page 4. (Read 4606 times)

I was wondering what state you are located.. I think its better to just have the Jig at one place and not ship it around and chance it getting damaged.. I am located in MO
OK just checked your profile..I see your in CO.. Any time frame when you will get it?

As soon as I get the jig I will tear down the rigs and get you the pictures.  

Dude, you're a God. Next time I'm in VA I'll msg you for a beer (root beer or otherwise). That would be the way to do it.

If someone can send me some high res photos of both sides of the board, and some pics of the jig and where it interfaces on the board, im pretty sure I can whip up a flasher for you guys that would require about $30 bucks worth of parts. I pretty much did the same thing for the Alcheminer guys when their boards had a major firmware issue that needed reflashing.

If someone can send me some high res photos of both sides of the board, and some pics of the jig and where it interfaces on the board, im pretty sure I can whip up a flasher for you guys that would require about $30 bucks worth of parts. I pretty much did the same thing for the Alcheminer guys when their boards had a major firmware issue that needed reflashing.

I certainly don't mind handing the jig off to someone who has the time to do this.  I know I certainly don't have the time to do this for everyone. 

I can tell you that Inno knows of 44 units in the US that were sold through them directly, and there are others that were bought through other channels.  So I need to reach out to those customers and direct them where ever we decide as a group to send these.   

I certainly don't mind handing the jig off to someone who has the time to do this.  I know I certainly don't have the time to do this for everyone.  

I can tell you that Inno knows of 44 units in the US that were sold through them directly, and there are others that were bought through other channels.  So I need to reach out to those customers and direct them where ever we decide as a group to send these.  

If someone can send me some high res photos of both sides of the board, and some pics of the jig and where it interfaces on the board, im pretty sure I can whip up a flasher for you guys that would require about $30 bucks worth of parts. I pretty much did the same thing for the Alcheminer guys when their boards had a major firmware issue that needed reflashing.

That would not be unusual: KNC did this with the Neptunes, and when they made the Titans they followed the exact same design. Because if the previous design works in the field why change it?

Let's move these discussions back to the main thread though; this is for fixing the A4's.

According to some info shared previously, supposedly the Hardware from B1/B2/B3 is all the same but the chips are all flashed differently.

I'd have to dig to find the post.

My guess is they are 1850 type power controllers. I remember those on the Jalapeno and BFL 60gh units, they're actually not too bad but pretty simple. Two channel support, they watch dv/dt across the upper FETs to determine current but they drive both FETs from the same gate source. One mistake BFL did was to use three high side and 3 low side FETs. The high side FETs are on only a very small period of time, but need to start up and shut down *QUICKLY* which requires a low capacatance gate trench. By putting three of them on the high side they increased the gate capacitance and they ran much hotter than they would have with only two. Low side tends to be on a lot more so capacitance isn't an issue and running three is a good idea.

Sorry, technobabble :-)


Good. Milling down an 8 bit 1990's controller MCU was enough of a bitch. :-) They may be busy, but see if you can reflash it with a 3.0 code base. What's the worst that can happen?

C

Interesting, if I understand this correctly -- you can pull from the B3 card and make your own Jig to reflash B1/B2? ...or am I reading too much into this

For anyone that is interested I dismantled mine completely the other day and took photos, it survived the process. Pinned out all the cables to what they do and signals they are. One thing I found odd is I was curious what dc-dc regulators they were used to control the voltage but they lazered off the tops of them so you don't know what they are.

yea no protect bit, wasn't set on A2s either, already thought about getting a B3 card to get it from, as for asking Inno I was talking to someone there regular about this process and being able to help and I thought it was going well but they disappeared 3 or 4 days ago.

Thanks, well that is a nice jig for sure, other than the alignment part I don't see what all the extra stuff does, but I was powering the board with the normal setup this may do something different, plus that sticker over the test points that takes scraping to remove not just a peel off. I don't know I would almost be willing if I could get the software to try one board, really only needed 3 connections to read the chip, although this may do a more in depth sanity check.

For anyone that is interested I dismantled mine completely the other day and took photos, it survived the process. Pinned out all the cables to what they do and signals they are. One thing I found odd is I was curious what dc-dc regulators they were used to control the voltage but they lazered off the tops of them so you don't know what they are.

http://photos.mag-productions.com/Hobbies/A4-miner/n-skNV3f/


yea no protect bit, wasn't set on A2s either, already thought about getting a B3 card to get it from, as for asking Inno I was talking to someone there regular about this process and being able to help and I thought it was going well but they disappeared 3 or 4 days ago.

Oh you can pull the firmware? Then they didn't set the write protect bit, *good*.

I wonder if you could find someone to send you one blade from a 3.0 unit, then try pulling that firmware and flashing it to your 1.0/2.0 board. Or ask Inno to send you the firmware. I was thinking actually of building a "hat" that would go on the chip with a Pi behind it to just flash away but it sounds like Inno has the jig.

C

That would be a very good idea. As someone who has repaired a bunch of reworks all at once awhile back time is critical. It takes time to pull the unit out, remove the screws, take off the fans, not lose the screws, pull the boards, and place on the preheater (or jig in this case). Then putting it together. The time spent doing that is miniscule to the user, but when you multiply it by 500 you're talking serious time.

People should pull out their blades, and send just those in. Make sure Inno is ok with this, if someone botches the removal then the boards should be replaced under warranty or something if Inno approves. (It's an exception case, document those).

It sounds like Inno wants to just do one jig, and to be honest the only skill I could offer with the jig is my kinda-good reputation :-). Anyone should be able to do the reprogramming, LS will do a great job on it I'm sure. If it required reflow/rework/fun skills then I'd put my hat in but for now it seems to be under control.

Oh you can pull the firmware? Then they didn't set the write protect bit, *good*.

I wonder if you could find someone to send you one blade from a 3.0 unit, then try pulling that firmware and flashing it to your 1.0/2.0 board. Or ask Inno to send you the firmware. I was thinking actually of building a "hat" that would go on the chip with a Pi behind it to just flash away but it sounds like Inno has the jig.

C

Anyone have a photo of the jig? I found the test points for the St Link interface to reflash the chip I just need the firmware unless there is some goofy procedure to doing this, really building a simple pin setup just to pop open the back push it on and hit send shouldn't be to far outta reach really. I was able to connect to one blade of mine and pull what firmware was on there off just to test. I live in Virginia not to central there either.

Anyone have a photo of the jig? I found the test points for the St Link interface to reflash the chip I just need the firmware unless there is some goofy procedure to doing this, really building a simple pin setup just to pop open the back push it on and hit send shouldn't be to far outta reach really. I was able to connect to one blade of mine and pull what firmware was on there off just to test. I live in Virginia not to central there either.

Here's some pics: https://www.flickr.com/photos/vinylwasp/sets/72157677783247635/

1. Unplug and Remove Fan
2. Remove the 2 screws that hold the cards into the chassis.
3. Slide out cards, and remove stickers covering contacts on each board (Batch 2 cards)
4. Move the mode selector switch on the Jig towards the Mini Downloader into the Up/Download position (see photos)
5. Plug both USB cables into the jig (they're powered from any standard USB socket). Both lights (red and blue) on the Mini Downloader should be flashing.
6. Place card (with heatsink on) onto the jig.
7. Lower the contacts onto the card using the handle
8. Push the button on the Mini Downloader. The Red light will flash a few times and then the Blue light locks on. This indicates that the firmware download was successful.
9. Flip the mode selector switch into the Down/Decode position away from the Mini-Downloader. Watch the card's LED. It should come on in a second and will stay lit for 5-7 seconds while the jig performs some diagnostics (my assumption, not documented).
10. Once the LED goes off, raise the pin assembly, remove the card, flip the mode selector back into the Up/Download position, and remove the USB cables.
11. Start process again.

That's it. The reflash process takes about 30 seconds per card. I struck a couple of mine where the LED began flashing like crazy at step 7, or step 9, but resetting the card in the jig and/or performing the process again from the start sorted it.

If you can get a Jig, anyone who can handle a screwdriver can do this job if you follow the documentation and keep your cool if LEDs start flashing.