V2Go preorder 2 Seems dead (shipped without firmware)

[DrF]

 Hi, finally got my bus pirate from SEEED Studio today (pre-order 2 waited 8 ish weeks) unfortunatly it seems dead, I have followed all the tutorials (Bus Pirate 101, Hack A Day posts etc.) in the hope of finding some kind of trouble shooting info or some one with a similar issue but the only thing I found was this :

http://whereisian.com/forum/index.php?topic=19.0

 This seems VERY similer to what I am experiancing, I installed the FTDI drivers and tried on 2 systems (XP64 and a fresh install of XP 32 bit on another system) and on both I can install the drivers and get it to show a "USB Com port 3" in my device manager, but no matter what terminal program I use HyperTerminal or Tera Term I just cannot get the device to show me a menu or anything else.

Any ideas or is this thing dead? :(

[ian]

Hi DrF - I'm sorry your Bus Pirate didn't work. Overall we've had a good experience, but there have definitely been a few DOA units.

It sounds like you've covered the bases. You might quickly check the USB com port driver (and terminal) settings to make sure all flow control is disabled, and that it's operating at 115200bps/8/N/1.

If that doesn't help, please contact Seeed about a return, they've been really great about returns so far.

[DrF]

Thanks for the fast reply :)

 I just sent SEEED a mail and hope I can change it at least, checked my settings and even tried manually setting the port too, changed the USB cable (strangly I found 3 tested with camara and MP3 player ok)

 I will still be interested in what I understand is BP V3 soon?

[DrF]

Got a reply from SEEEED :

"Hi,
The bus pirate preorder 2 burn a bootloader, has no firmware.
So please upload the latest firmware.
Then it will work as expect.
Thanks
Albert"

Seems odd how they test it then with no firmware on it?

[ian]

That does seem odd! The first preorder used a combined bootloader/firmware file with firmware v0g preloaded. I don't know what happened after I left Hack a Day, but I don't know why Hack a Day would have changed the firmware file. Maybe they just meant your Bus Pirate? I hope it's not all of them.

When you plug in the Bus Pirate, does the MODE light come on right away?

Where you able to load the latest firmware with the bootloader?

[DrF]

Yeah the mode light was on. I manged to flash it with the new firmware 2.1 and it all seems to work ok now :)

Does seem a little odd that 1 batch has no firmware, have to wait and see if any one else has the same situation to confirm that.

[ian]

Thanks so much for keeping us updated.

I really hope that isn't the case, it's a bit of a nail biter to wait and find out. If the LED came on then it was programmed with the latest bootloader version (v2), instead of the version that shipped in the first preorder (v0g/v1). Bonus: you get the updated bootloader without reflashing the PIC, but I hope everyone is able to bootload without problems.

If another person confirms I'll add a sticky, post on my blog, and add a big notice at the top of the manual.

[Glimcoil]

Same issue here. Received the BusPirate today (PreOrder 2). Was shipped from HK on Sept 1. It
was only loaded with the bootloader - no actual code. So no response to terminal, the green "MODE" LED was on immediatly after power on. Programmer connected without any issues (didn't need to set the jumper - another sign that it was really just the bootloader only).
Works fine after loading the latest code.

- Martin

[ian]

Thanks for the reports, this is now confirmed.

The good new is you get the absolute latest bootloader, but you have to bootload the firmware file yourself. Here's the latest firmware download.

Since there's no existing firmware on the PIC, it enters the bootloader automatically. You shouldn't need a jumper between the PGC and PGD pins to trigger the bootloader. You can tell the v2 bootloader is active if the MODE LED lights immediately after power-on.

After programming for the first time you'll need to use a jumper to enter the bootloader for future firmware upgrades.

I'm very sorry for any inconvenience, this was out of my hands when I left Hack a Day. Preorder 2 would otherwise have shipped with v0g firmware, you'd probably want to update to take advantage of all the new features and bug fixes in the latest firmware (v2.1) anyways. I'm still very sorry for any inconvenience or frustration.

Happy Bus Pirating!