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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : DM needs USB conn to enter bootloader?
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| jdh2550 Regular Member  Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
Hi, Well I just found out that my DuinoMite Mega isn't broken. But my USB cable is... It turns out that you can only enter the bootloader if there's an active USB connection. That makes some sense as you have to use that connection to do the firmware update. However, it sure would be nice if they mentioned that in the owner's manual, on the website, via smoke signals... So here's me plugging and button pressing and checking the functioning of buttons all to no avail. Then I try a different USB cable and presto! It works. Is that the same for the MaxiMite hardware as well? Or is it unique to the DuinoMite? Ho hum! |
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donmck Guru  Joined: 09/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1313 |
I think it is unique to the DuinoMite bootloader, as the LED flashes on the MaxiMite if you try the same thing with just power, and no data connected. Of course, in both cases, neither will update with a faulty cable, but this is news for me also. The other side of the coin is that the MaxiMite LED flashes when the cable is faulty. That doesn't necessarily make one method right and the other wrong does it? Don... https://www.dontronics.com |
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| jdh2550 Regular Member Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
No - I don't think one is right or wrong. In fact, DM would be fine if it just mentioned "if you can't get into the bootloader check that your DM is attached to your computer and is listed in Device Manager as working" - or something like that. For the MM I guess that the smarts would have to be in the HIDBootloader.exe code? Another alternative for both of them would be to communicate error conditions with a different set of flash patterns. But that's probably more work than needed and a little arcane. My original post does sound a little whiny! Sorry about that! I think all the DM needs is an update to the hardware manual.  |
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| jdh2550 Regular Member Joined: 16/07/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 62 |
Actually, on reflection I think the MM approach is slightly preferable. In this scenario (faulty USB cable) I think the user is more likely to isolate the issue if when running the PC app it says "no device detected". My thinking was that the DM was "broken" because it wouldn't go into bootloader mode. So I was trying to find the issue with the DM when in fact the issue was external to the DM all along. This is all just "fine tuning" - not something that's terrible with either one. |
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