How to Guide - Flashing firmware
#1
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Occasionally we will have new firmware upgrades for the SuperCard Pro board. To flash the board, it has to be placed into a special flash mode. To put the board into this mode, do the following:
  • Attach the SuperCard Pro to a PC system's USB port.
  • Remove jumper J1.
  • Insert the flash jumper so that GND and Rx/Tx on port RS232-1 is jumpered.
  • Make sure board is powered via USB or through the 3.5" floppy port connector.
  • Re-insert jumper J1.
At this point, a single blue LED should be lit up in the series of LEDs labeled "The Pretty Lights". This means that the board is in flash mode. The flash jumper was provided with your SuperCard Pro board

See the close up picture for reference.

After putting the board into flash mode you can then use the flash software to update the firmware. Once completed, remove the flash jumper and power off and then on the SuperCard Pro board. It's ready to use.


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#2
(11-06-2013, 02:36 PM)admin Wrote:
  • Attach the SuperCard Pro to a PC system's USB port.
  • Remove jumper J1.
  • Insert the flash jumper so that GND and Rx/Tx on port RS232-1 is jumpered.
  • Make sure board is powered via USB or through the 3.5" floppy port connector.
  • Re-insert jumper J1.
At this point, a single blue LED should be lit up in the series of LEDs labeled "The Pretty Lights". This means that the board is in flash mode.

Hopefully you don't mind me posting here, but I just wanted to add one tip that might help other people.

I followed the above instructions, and got the single blue LED, but when I ran the updater software, it said that the SuperCard Pro board was not found. This was on Windows 7 64-bit.

To solve this, I simply unplugged the USB cable from the PC and then plugged it back in. Then the software detected the board and I could update the firmware.
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#3
If you remove J1, it kills power to the board. Replacing J1 restores power to the board, so that will reset it. You should not have to unplug the USB cable to kill the power.
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#4
(12-12-2014, 11:25 AM)admin Wrote: If you remove J1, it kills power to the board. Replacing J1 restores power to the board, so that will reset it. You should not have to unplug the USB cable to kill the power.
I followed your instructions to the letter, but power to the board wasn't the issue - it was that until I unplugged the USB cable and plugged it back in, the updater software could not find the SuperCard Pro.

This is probably an issue with the operating system, not your software or hardware. I suspect that when I removed J1, Windows 7 lost the USB connection.
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#5
No, that should not be the case. The USB controller for the SuperCard Pro is a separate entity from the rest of the board components. You can remove J1 and still talk to the board (the CPU just won't respond). The USB driver is active and it shows up in the USB list (and COM ports if you have the drive set for LOAD VCP).

What could be the problem you saw has to do with trying to launch the SuperCard Pro software before closing the updater program. That would generate a message that the board can not be found because another program (the updater) has locked the USB port.
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#6
(12-15-2014, 07:34 AM)admin Wrote: What could be the problem you saw has to do with trying to launch the SuperCard Pro software before closing the updater program. That would generate a message that the board can not be found because another program (the updater) has locked the USB port.
That might be the case, but in reverse.

I was using the SuperCard Pro software, and had imaged two disks from a batch I had to do, when I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade the firmware.

I definitely closed the SuperCard Pro software before starting to follow your instructions - because I know enough to realise that having that loaded would potentially interfere with the flashing process - and it was only when I came to the near final step of launching the Updater software did it say about not finding the board.

So maybe the SuperCard Pro software (or some glitch with Windows) didn't release the lock on the USB port when I quit? And when I unplugged the USB cable it (Windows) released that lock, so the Updater could then see it when I plugged it back in?
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#7
Maybe... Windows is a bit strange sometimes. Unfortunately, there is no way to pop up a requester stating that the USB port is in use by another device - the driver doesn't allow for that.
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