deviation-devo F12E

good idea!

Hello to all !

I´m a pretty new user to the F12E with deviation, so many thanks to all the people who made this possible, especial PhracturedBlue!
And of course to you, Gryfalcon!

As you asked for feedback about your latest build I have experienced some problems with the build you attached lately:
I have uploaded to my F12E your firmware. There were no errors or something fishy at the upload process. I really like the "new" style!!!!
But after I did some changes in the transmitter setup, like calibration or battery alarm voltage (which worked fine and flawless), my F12E gets stuck in the bootup process after a reboot.
Only a backlit blackscreen is visible and the transmitter won´t power off until I disconnect the battery.
Disconnecting the battery doesn´t change anything, the moment I power it on, it gets stuck.Only a reflash does bring it back to life, but as soon as I make some changes in the setup, it will break down again. I reflashed it several times, every time sucessfull. Reboots without changes are no problem but as soon as I make some changes... backlit blackscreen^^, TX won´t turn off until battery disconnected, reflash needed. Maybe there is something wrong with data storage of changes in the transmitter setup? At the moment I am back on the recent latest nightly build which was available, I had no problems getting back there.

Just for the record, my setup from which I came from:
- Win10 64bit (no scrap or bloatware on it) with latest Java installed
- Deviation USB driver (reboot after installation as darthnugget suggested)
- Deviation uploader 0.8.0
- F12E HW Ver.:1.2, Softwarever.:1.6 (stock from walkera), no "power user" of this transmitter, only casual use
- USB cable connected without any "Hub" between PC and F12E (I´m using a port at the back of the mainboard)
- I started from the nigthly build v4.0.1-4fc5268 (uploaded on 22. Feb.)
- Battery in Transmitter is a 3S lipo, fully charched and connected via 4 wire Jst (I think?) connector to the F12E
- I set the option in Deviation Uploader to: *Format, which automatically includes *Install Library, *Replace tx.ini, *Replace hardware.ini and *Replace models
- The installation ran flawless and finished with sucsessfull

You mentioned, you exchanged the SPI memory chip in your F12E. May I ask to which chip and where you got it from?
Can you also provide the firmware which you have tested on the F12E with this "extended" memory?

Thank you for your effort!!!

Best regards
Max

Hi Max, Thank you for all of you great feedback. I'm glad that it loaded well for you.

Can you elaborate a little on the backlit black screen?

I think you may have the video mode turned on and the OSD turned off, which would be the desired function. When turning on the transmitter, did you get the splash screen on a black background, and then go to just a black screen? If so that would be expected if you have the video enable switch set to video. If you had a camera configured and turned on, it should be displaying video feed without any OSD text. You should always be able to hit enter and have the menus come up, or use the switch you configured to change the video mode and change back to the transmitter screen. Note I have changed the default so that a Normal transmitter screen will overlay on top of the video, unless changed to be off, or set to be one of the Sensor Views.

Not sure what is caused the failure to power-down; I had some un-explained issues with the devoFS, before I changed the spi flash memory as well. Just in case the devofs system was getting full, I removed two files that I had added. Let’s see if that makes an improvement.

Regarding the flash memory upgrade, I used the same chip found in many of the devo transmitters. I did not want to add any more variables to the code development. It is the SST25VF016B and I purchased it from DIgi-Key. It was a little tricky to install since the chip size is different, but not that bad.

In my opinion this is really needed. It enables to devoF12e to run the Deviation software just like all the other devo transmitters and eliminates the challenges and limitations of the devofs file system. The biggest negative to making the change is that the original software will not work correctly. It will load and run, but you cannot save any changes or models.

Check out the lasted version when you have a chance and let me know how it goes.

Hi Gyrfalcon,

thank you for the information about the spi chip.

I have tried to establish a video connection to the F12E with your firmware flashed. Everything works like it is supposed to.
I get a video image as soon as I power on the F12E, with the "startup image", showing the helicopter image (I have not changed the model icon or anything else up to this moment), the FW version and the SPI storage size as an overlay. I can scroll through every menu, no problems there.
When I change nothing else as the video channel, I can reboot the F12E as often as I whish, no problems occur.

But if I change only a single value in the transmitter setup which I have tried with setting the alarm voltage from "stock" 9.6V to 10.8V, on the next bootup there is the before mentioned blackscreen. No video signal, no reaction to ENT or EXT button or any other button / slider / stick and also not by switching the power switch to off-position. Only disconnecting the battery will shut the F12E down.

Somehow the change of a single setup value brings something to get the F12E stuck in bootup process.

As I read from your posts, you are evaluating your firmware with the SPI chip altered to the bigger sized (storage space wise) chip, not the standard 64kB?
Maybe there is something which is handeled different on the 64kB chip which doesn´t appear to you.
Because it reminds me of your post about the bigger SPI storage size an original walkera firmware:
"The biggest negative to making the change is that the original software will not work correctly. It will load and run, but you cannot save any changes or models."
This is somehow similar to what I experience with your firmware and stock SPI chip, just the other way around.

Best regards
Max

Edit: I missed your hint to your latest version, where can I get it? It's not to find in the nightly nor in the testbuilds I think?
Sure I would test it and give you a feedback.


Edit 2: I recently bought the SPI SST25VF016B and I am ready to install it into the devo. Could you be so kind and share your code for the Devo F12E with this SPI chip? Thank you in advance!

I hope I can get answer here.
Is devo F12E 10mW and 100mW difference only in software or is it hardware?
my is 10mW and like to get 100mW out of it.

Hi Blisk,

the transmit power is only software controlled.

If you are on original Walkera firmware it depends on the version (A=100mW, B=10mW). So you would have to flash a 100mW firmware. You should use walkera update tools for the firmware installation.

If you are on deviation firmware, you can simply control the transmit power by changing the power output in the model menu --> model setup --> Tx power. Here the maximum rating is 150mW down to 100uW in several stages. I don't know if the walkera transmit module is capable of more than 100mW.

Kind regards
Max

Hi Max
Thank you for explaining things.
I am on original walkera firmware for now, I need to test all so first I will do with original than go to deviation.
I have qr x350 premium and don't know if deviation works with it and how it works. If anyone have experience please let me know.

I already tried to upload original firmware 1.6A now I have 1.6B and it is 10mW.
But when upload 1.6A when I restart F12E I get message "wrong firmware". So here is a problem.
How to upload 1.6A so I get working F12E?

"You can't upload the 100mW fw into a 10mW tx until you replace your bootloder with the one of the 100mW transmitters. If you had that at hand, you would need a programmer device to flash it into the tx."
Can you explain this one a little bit? Is that mean I need to replace TX hardware?

"Search the RCGroups Devo TX Hacking thread.... "
I did but that was for devo 8 and 10 but not for 12, and it is a little complicated. I am not a programmer but I work with electronics.

Is that mean even if I upload Deviation I could not unlock 100mW?

Thank you for expanation.
yes I thought that bootloader is "kernel" for OS. Something like that.
Did someone already done that?
Change bootloader?

Ok so the simpliest way for me is Deviation if I like to use 100mW.
is it possible to go back to official fw?
ca you give me a link which fw deviation to use for F12E?

Thank you FDR you are great.
I have st link adapter, this one, is it ok?
I already have changed my bootloader for my media player with this st link.
are there any instructions how to change bootloader?
www.waveshare.com/st-link-v2-mini-stm32.htm

Just uploaded your 4234 test release. The new screen driver looks great. Some initial feedback,

1) I am running Mac OS-X El-Capitan with DeviationUpload-0.8.0. With this combination, I am unable to access the file system to download or upload files. (For example model files) I get a blank screen. Any button I push corrupts the firmware and next time I boot the transmitter it goes into USB mode. I would need to reflash the firmware again with reformat to get everything back. It would be great to get this fixed so I wouldn't have to re-enter all my model info. (I also tried windows and was getting roughly the same result)
2) After I calibrate all the control, the "Calibration done" message overlaps on the old screen. Minor problem but I thought I would give you the feedback.
3) Very nice touch on OSD setting to off only applies to video being on. This is great and love this feature

I will test this more thoroughly in the next few weeks. I was experience random setting corruption in the nightly build and hope this would fix my problem. (i.e., one of the mixer value would be changed for no reason) Thanks.

Spoke too soon. On the 4th or 5th power down of the transmitter, the transmitter hung with a blank blue screen. No key response so I had to remove the battery to shut it down. Now the firmware is corrupt. On power up, the blank blue screen shows up and not responding to any key press.

Hi PB,
I just flashed the latest nightly DFU and copied the file system through USB mode. It works fast! And the firmware seems more stable. Great job!
I have only one question. You mentioned utilities to make changes in the file system. Where can I find them? I want to try to add my existing models into the devo.fs file.
Thanks!

Thanks! That does the trick and it even tells you how much of the flash you're using!