Yes it's a bit confusing that the GUI requires you to load the firmware first and then connect the H (powered down).
Typhoon H firmware bricked
- Thread starter hedley
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Yes it's a bit confusing that the GUI requires you to load the firmware first and then connect the H (powered down).
I got 2 * boards back from Yuneec Germany today - ( they were very prompt and kept me informed of progress ). The conclusion seems to be - If your bootloader is corrupt the only place the boards can be reprogrammed is at the factory. This is why Yuneec Germany had to replace the boards . The bootloader is the initial code that allows the processor chip on the H to communicate with the GUI. If you can plug the USB in and the GUI sees the H then there are many methods - such as that described by SPFlug . These will work . The caution note is that I screwed up the whole system when trying to load from the GUI and I would suggest that this method be used as a last resort. With V 3 and over the air update I dont really see any need to connect the H to the PC with the USB cable.
Thanks to all who contributed to this thread which was a long "road to nowhere " . I should have just sent the boards back as soon as the H would not boot up.
Thanks to all who contributed to this thread which was a long "road to nowhere " . I should have just sent the boards back as soon as the H would not boot up.
PatR
Premium Pilot
It looked for awhile like you were trying to do more than correct the problem. Good to see it has come together for you.
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you should not try to enable write protect and overwrite bootloader
then you can load back software at home its good first to ask
To try and close off this matter
1. I had no nefarious motives in spending a lot of time and money trying to " hack" the Typhoon H . Rather I was trying to get a product working on unpacking . I maintain that it is a well designed and conceived solution , at a competitive price point BUT released too soon before the engineering was done and proper testing undertaken .
2. When the unit was unpacked and powered on it booted and could bind.
3. I then saw that there was a later version 2.25 which I downloaded and then in error connected the USB cable to the H and on the downloaded GUI utility selected update firmware.
4. After this I could not power on and boot - had 1 beep and then when power switch released the unit powered off.
5. Instead of sending unit back I thought I could reprogram the FC processor ( STM32F405 ) which we have used on other projects in my company.
6. I could not get the GUI to communicate with the chip at all so the only way to communicate with these chips is via DFU mode. This requires setting some pins ( discussed in previous post ).
7. I was able to read from and write to the chip at address 0x0800000 so thought I had found a solution .
8. The problem was I was writing the " update firmware " to the chip and not the original .
9. I then got another working H thinking I could read out the entire memory and writ into my faulty unit.
10. When you read out the entire memory Yuneec has this read protected so you have to disable this and in doing so the chip writes all FF to its memory .
11. Result was I had 2 broken boards.
12. These were sent to Germany who were excellent in their turnaround ( they replaced the boards ) - I suspect they too don't have the low level boot-loader that is read protected.
Now that I have a working unit it will stay in the box until a few more software releases have been published and I will never try and load by the USB cable.
There seem to be a number of opinions on what is needed to get to a point where
a) You can take off and hover in a stable position X,Y and Z with hand off. - ie no lateral drift or height change.
b) You can fly with some confidence knowing if spacial orientation is lost you can select home and the unit will return and not " fly away"
c) GPS lock will mean just that and not have drop outs etc. I fly three full sized planes and rely heavily on GPS and have never looked at " magnetic condition graphs " expecting GPS malfunction - granted I don't fly 100M from ground level in a built up area or a park.
1. I had no nefarious motives in spending a lot of time and money trying to " hack" the Typhoon H . Rather I was trying to get a product working on unpacking . I maintain that it is a well designed and conceived solution , at a competitive price point BUT released too soon before the engineering was done and proper testing undertaken .
2. When the unit was unpacked and powered on it booted and could bind.
3. I then saw that there was a later version 2.25 which I downloaded and then in error connected the USB cable to the H and on the downloaded GUI utility selected update firmware.
4. After this I could not power on and boot - had 1 beep and then when power switch released the unit powered off.
5. Instead of sending unit back I thought I could reprogram the FC processor ( STM32F405 ) which we have used on other projects in my company.
6. I could not get the GUI to communicate with the chip at all so the only way to communicate with these chips is via DFU mode. This requires setting some pins ( discussed in previous post ).
7. I was able to read from and write to the chip at address 0x0800000 so thought I had found a solution .
8. The problem was I was writing the " update firmware " to the chip and not the original .
9. I then got another working H thinking I could read out the entire memory and writ into my faulty unit.
10. When you read out the entire memory Yuneec has this read protected so you have to disable this and in doing so the chip writes all FF to its memory .
11. Result was I had 2 broken boards.
12. These were sent to Germany who were excellent in their turnaround ( they replaced the boards ) - I suspect they too don't have the low level boot-loader that is read protected.
Now that I have a working unit it will stay in the box until a few more software releases have been published and I will never try and load by the USB cable.
There seem to be a number of opinions on what is needed to get to a point where
a) You can take off and hover in a stable position X,Y and Z with hand off. - ie no lateral drift or height change.
b) You can fly with some confidence knowing if spacial orientation is lost you can select home and the unit will return and not " fly away"
c) GPS lock will mean just that and not have drop outs etc. I fly three full sized planes and rely heavily on GPS and have never looked at " magnetic condition graphs " expecting GPS malfunction - granted I don't fly 100M from ground level in a built up area or a park.
@hedley You are to be congratulated on your detective work in trying to solve your problem. I've forgotten all the Assembly language I learned whilst an undergrad at Berkeley some 35 years ago and have NO desire to go back and learn it! I would have loved to be a "fly on the wall" watching you trying to unravel and debug this. Hats off to you, sir!
I'm under the impression that connecting the USB cable to a powered down H puts it (briefly) in DFU mode. At least, when I had a similar experience (update failed, H refused to power on, single beep on pressing power switch), I was able to revert back to the earlier firmware by loading it in the GUI and then connecting the cable. This 'unbricked' the Typhoon and did a working firmware install.
The only way to get into DFU mode is to tie the boot0 pin on the processor to vdd and boot1 pin to Gnd during power up. Fortunately we have electronic soldering microscopes and fine pitch soldering stations .
The processor has a default bootloader that can communicate on USB in DFU mode OR using com1 . The typhoon H connects to the Yuneec GUI using the com1 serial port mode . That is why the drivers show a com port when connected.
What appeared to happen when I " bricked " the device is that the com1 method of communicating broke hence the need to get out the solder station .
As mentioned before if you can connect via the USB cable in com port mode , you have a good chance of getting back to an operating unit.
The processor has a default bootloader that can communicate on USB in DFU mode OR using com1 . The typhoon H connects to the Yuneec GUI using the com1 serial port mode . That is why the drivers show a com port when connected.
What appeared to happen when I " bricked " the device is that the com1 method of communicating broke hence the need to get out the solder station .
As mentioned before if you can connect via the USB cable in com port mode , you have a good chance of getting back to an operating unit.
he
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