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Black Box Flashing has killed my Black Box- help!

Discussion in 'CNC Mills/Routers' started by DaveySLP, Aug 9, 2021.

  1. DaveySLP

    DaveySLP New
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    Hi Everyone, so I posted before on this that I recently installed a door sensor and had to update the Black Box (BB) by flashing it. So I did and it said 'flashing failed'. In order to use the BB again I had to shut down everything and it came back up as before (so no door sensor update). I did get a reply to this on my last thread which asked me to make sure and check to see if the auto-reset jumper was connected, I checked, and it was. So I tried one more time. Same message except now there is no power to my stepper drives when I turn everything on, and the open-builds control just says 'the port is closed' and won't let me connect to my BB!!!! So, my machine at the mo (which I use for my business) is unfortunately dead in the water :(. This looks like a serious issue with the stability of the flashing of the drive. So much so that attempting to update it for something as simple as a door switch seems to have killed it. I have no idea what to do from here or if it can be fixed... If anyone can offer any help, I would greatly appreciate it as I need to get up and running as soon as possible.

    thank you to anyone who might be able to help :)
     
  2. DaveySLP

    DaveySLP New
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    Ok, so this is a bit strange... I figured I would just unplug and remove the Black Box from my machine, bring it in, and try flashing on another computer (both running latest version of Openbuilds control). So, when I tried flashing on my indoor computer, voila, flashed fine and the BlackBox now recognizes the sensor ok and is working ok. So I thought I would check the two flash screens and compare. So I have attached the tow screen shots...

    So, I have two questions:

    1) Given both computers 1 and 2 are running the same version of open builds control, why would there be a difference in flashing screen (I normally run my machine with computer 1)?
    2) The screen shot for computer 1 shows a red additional button asking for a flash image, and so it seems to me that the open builds controller on this computer doesn't have a flash image (that came with the same version of software that I'm using for computer 2) and so why would it even try flashing at all?

    I flag this up as this might be an important issue in the flashing protocol that needs fixing and possibly an issue the open builds control and what flash file it carries when downloaded.
     

    Attached Files:

  3. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    You earlier selected Custom on the one screen. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

    Flashing failed may be selected wrong port, different FTDI Driver versions, or other USB timing related issues - advice would have been to try a different PC anyway, so glad you already did that, and as expected that worked.
     
  4. DaveySLP

    DaveySLP New
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    Actually, I didn't select anything, I simply clicked on wizards and tools and those are the two screens that came up. So that red button asking to select firmware image was automatic... So again, not sure why the same version of software has two different screens on clicking wizards and tools?
     
  5. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    Thanks for the report.
     
  6. DaveySLP

    DaveySLP New
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    No worries, hope it helps :)
     
  7. DaveySLP

    DaveySLP New
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    Also, might be worth looking into why the software went ahead and deleted the firmware (or at least appeared to) when it didn't have an image to map across beforehand (so maybe a firmware image check stage missing in the flash process?). As when I brought the box in and connected to the computer that could flash ok, upon connection, the open builds controller stated that no firmware was detected on the black box, so I'm guessing it had been wiped in the unsuccessful flash?
     
  8. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
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    Thanks for the notes :thumbsup:
     

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