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Flashing / Upgrading your iron

Downloading source file

In the development of this firmware, there are three types of firmware released. These are the "Main" stable releases, which generally have high confidence in being bug free. Release candidates are released slightly more often, and these are generally perfectly fine for everyday use. These are released early to allow for translation checking and for wonderful people to help spot bugs and regressions. Finally, there are the "mainline" builds, which are built from the main git branch. These are built on every change an can be found on the Actions tab (see below).

Main release

Main releases are made to the releases page. Download the zip file that matches your model of soldering iron, and extract it. You then need to use the appropriate file type for your unit, in general Miniware irons are .hex and Pinecil is .bin. Flash according to details below

Bleeding edge / latest

For the latest code, you will need to download the zip file from the artifacts page on the build for what you want. Head to the Actions page and then select the run for the appropriate branch you would like. In general you probably want master.

Once you click on a run, scroll down to the "Artifacts" section and then click on your model to download a zip file. Then this works the same as a production release (use the correct file).

Miniware irons (TS100, TS80, TS80P)

This is completely safe, but if it goes wrong just put the .hex file from the official website onto the unit and you're back to the old firmware. Downloads for the hex files to flash are available on the releases page. The file you want is called (MODEL)_EN.hex unless you want the translations, they are (MODEL)_language short name.hex. Where (MODEL) is either TS100 or TS80.

Officially the bootloader on the iron only works under Windows (use the built-in File Explorer, as alternative file managers or copy handlers like Teracopy will fail). However, users have reported that it does work under Mac, and can be made to work under Linux sometimes. Details over on the wiki page.

  1. Hold the button closest to the tip, and plug in the USB to the computer.
  2. The unit will appear as a USB drive. ( Screen will say DFU on it.)
  3. Drag the .hex file onto the USB drive.
  4. The unit will disconnect and reconnect.
  5. The filename will have changed to end in .RDY or .ERR
  6. If it ends with .RDY you're done! Otherwise, something went wrong.
  7. If it didn't work the first time, try copying the file again without disconnecting the iron, often it will work on the second shot.
  8. Disconnect the USB and power up the iron. You're good to go.

For the more adventurous out there, you can also load this firmware onto the device using an SWD programmer.

On the bottom of the MCU riser PCB, there are 4 pads for programming. On v2.51A PCB revision USB_D+ is shorted to SWDIO and USB_D- is shorted to SWCLK so debugging works without disassembly (attach while staying in the bootloader). Installing dapboot from eDesignOSS (make TARGET=TS100 -C src) is recommended as it allows reliable flashing of binary files with dfu-util.

There is a complete device flash backup included in this repository. (Note this includes the bootloader, so will need an SWD programmer to load onto the unit).

For the TS80 the SWD pins are used for the QC negotiation, so you can actually connect to the SWD power via the USB connector.

Mac

sgr1ff1n (Shane) commented in issue 11 that upgrading worked on their Mac as per normal:

I just wanted to say that I was able to update the firmware on my ts100 from the stock version to 1.08 found in this repository using my Mac. I simply followed the same steps however through Finder. I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) running Sierra 10.12.4 (16E195).

Linux

While in past there were reports of unreliable upgrades, the consensus in issue 11 is that things work mostly as expected in Linux.

@awigen has contributed a script flash_ts100_linux.sh that works on Ubuntu 16.04 as well as other distros.

If you want to do it manually (or if the script does not work for some reason) the general procedure is the same as for Windows, the differences are in the way to mount the unit and copy the firmware. Remember that after flashing, the firmware filename will have changed to end in .RDY or .ERR or .NOT and only .RDY means the flashing was successful!

  • The unit has to be mounted as msdos type (thanks @balrog-kun for having spotted it). You may disable automount, but unmounting the automounted drive and remounting as msdos works fine. You do not need to turn off automounting, but you do need to unmount the device with umount.
  • It is recommended to use an all-caps filename for the firmware, even if successful flashing were done with lower case names.
  • Avoid USB hubs, plug directly in your computer.
  • If it fails, try again several times without unplugging. Just let it remount.

Example, to be run as root, once the unit has been plugged in DFU mode and auto-mounted:

FW=ts100.hex
unset NAME
eval $(lsblk -P -p -d --output NAME,MODEL|grep "DFU[ _]Disk")
[ -z ${NAME+x} ] && exit 1  # Could not find DFU device
umount "$NAME"
mkdir /tmp/mntdfu
mount -t msdos "$NAME" /tmp/mntdfu
cp "$FW" "/tmp/mntdfu/$(basename $FW|tr a-z A-Z)"
sync
umount /tmp/mntdfu
rmdir /tmp/mntdfu

Device will reboot and automount will rerun if not disabled. Check the extension of your firmware, it should be .RDY now.

Pinecil (Pine64)

The MCU used in the Pinecil supports usb-dfu.

To enter DFU mode, hold the button at the back of the iron while connecting to usb over usb-c. Generally all usb controllers work, but some hubs have issues so avoiding hubs may be best.

Once the device is connected while holding the button, the screen will stay off.

This is normal, and then you can use the appropriate tool to load the .hex or .bin file as per your OS.

You can also refer to the Pine64 Wiki.

Linux and Mac

Using dfu-util you can flash the firmware using a command line as such:

dfu-util -D Pinecil_EN.dfu

Windows

For windows the easiest tool to use is the vendors gui tool from here.

Should the link break, its called "GD32 MCU Dfu Tool" and can be grabbed from http://www.gd32mcu.com/en/download/.

You will also need the matching drivers from here installed if you have not used gigadevice parts before.

These are called "GD32 Dfu Drivers" if the link breaks.

Steps:

  1. Download both the GD32 MCU DFU TOOL and the Drivers
  2. Install the drivers and open the DFU tool
  3. Ignore the prompt to update the tool.
  4. Connect pinecil to windows with usb cable while holding down minus button, screen will be stay blank but you will hear the noise from windows connecting to it.
  5. At the top of the DFU tool, you should see GD DFU DEVICE 1 appear at the top
  6. Change the mode to Download to device
  7. Select the open button in that area of the window and load the Pinecil_XX.hex file from the downloaded release
  8. Tick the verify after download check box
  9. Click the OK button at the bottom of the window to run the process
  10. After it is complete either click "Leave DFU` or unplug the iron and power cycle it while not holding down the buttons.

You can also use dfu-util if you wish to set it up, but that is better documented by others when it comes to windows.

FAQ

[Miniware] The file is showing up with the extension .ERR

This can occur during the programming process if any of the checks in the bootloader fail. This is often triggered by anti-virus software or using a non-windows host OS.

First, try just copying the file a second time.

  1. Attach the iron in DFU mode
  2. Copy the hex file to the device
  3. The device disconnects and connects with the .ERR file
  4. Copy the same hex file again DO NOT TRY AND DELETE THE OLD ONE
  5. The device will disconnect and reconnect again
  6. The device should now have the .RDY file
  7. You're done.

If this fails and you are on Mac or Linux reading the wiki page about programming can help. There is also a very long issue thread going through all of the different attempts around this too.

If you are on windows, it's often best to try another computer (friends, work, partners etc).

[Miniware] Device randomly disconnects or does not show up in DFU mode

First, check the USB cable you are using has the data pins; test it on another device. There are a surprisingly large number of usb-micro cables that are power only.

Secondly, try other USB ports. Often different USB controllers will interact with the units differently due to design quirks in the miniware design.

[Miniware] Alternative bootloader

If you are an advanced user, and you have used usb-dfu tools before, or you would like to learn; there is an alternative bootloader for these irons. This will NOT show up as a USB storage drive, but instead show up using a standard DFU protocol device. You can then use dfu tools or GUI's to upgrade the iron using the .bin files that are posted to the releases page.

To change to dapboot based alternative bootloader, you need to flash the hex file from here. ts100-stockbl.hex will reflash the stock bootloader, ts100-dapboot.hex will flash the new dapboot based usb bootloader.

Note that this is only recommended for users who know what they are doing. If you don't understand how this works, please don't flash this.