New Firmware 7/1

[John]

There is a new Escribe (V1.0.20) and Firmware (6/30).

Escribe will offer to update the next time you run it.

Once you have the updated and run the new Escribe, there will be a message offering to update the firmware on your DNA 200 the next time you plug it in. 

No major features were added in this round. We made small tweaks to the Production Utility to allow it to be used to mass update bare boards, as well as complete devices. Other minor bug and graphical fixes. We added an optional message screen if the user is hitting the max kanthal power. 

On the firmware side, we fixed a few bugs that would have made the device consume power while sleeping if the setting file was corrupt, fixed the blinking screen when the balancer is disconnected for Power Supply mode, the device recovers correctly from a balancer disconnection, and stops charging if the balancer  is disconnected during operation. We added the option to charge to 4.1 instead of 4.2 volts, which improves the number of charge cycles a battery is good for, at a cost of runtime per charge. 

[dwaindablane]

Thank you, John

[JLIT]

Thank you John!

[Justin]

Just thought I'd share my experience during this first firmware upgrade,

I believe the USB cable must have came loose, or the firmware upload was somehow corrupted.
The software crashed, the devices screen went off and would not respond in any way, and the software would not connect.

After I stopped freaking out, I solved this just by running the firmware update again. Worked flawlessly.

[John]

It didn't offer to retry?

[xplumberx]

Where do we set the charging to 4.1 per cell instead of the 4.2?

[David Campbell]

It is under the Mod tab. Charging Mode: Maximize Puffs or Maximize Recharges

[Justin]

Hi John,

I do remember it displaying some very interesting errors, but it definitely did not offer to retry. Unfortunately I don't recall what errors exactly, but as soon as the dialog windows were dismissed the software closed completely. I'm willing to do some additional testing if you'd like, as long as you can assure me I'm not going to brick my device in the process


Edit: Just to clarify, this wasn't a silly "Application not responding" windows error message, they were errors from the software itself.

[John]

You shouldn't brick your device, and even if you did, we'd replace it. I'll turn you over to James who wrote Escribe and see if you guys can replicate it. 

[Justin]

Cheers! I have a tiny bit of software development experience so it should be a fairly smooth process. I have some free time tomorrow, I'll do a little testing and dump some info here if I don't hear from James.

[James]

Hi Justin,

If you are able to repeat it, could you paste in the text it gives in Details of the error message?
I am guessing it is throwing an exception.

Thanks

James

[Justin]

Hi James,

In my testing I wasn't able to reproduce the issue. However, I've noticed that updates are very very slow over USB 3.0. I haven't had time to sit through to see the end result (I expect it could take over an hour). While I've yet to see any errors or crashes, the software does exhibit sporadic unresponsiveness.

Everything is fine using USB 2.0
It's worth noting that during the first update, that I reported issues with, I was using USB 3.0.
I'm unsure whether this is specific to my hardware, but I haven't had any issues using USB 3.0 with other devices.

[retird]

Using Windows 8.1 and USB 3.0 here and seeing no lag in updates at all. No sporadic unresponsiveness of software either.

[Justin]

Very interesting. I'm using the Windows 10 preview, it could be a driver issue or something of that sort. I think at this point I'm going to chalk it up to wonky drivers/OS.
Like I said though, no problems with any other devices. Here's a dump of my system info summary for reference.

OS Name    Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Technical Preview
Version    10.0.10041 Build 10041
Other OS Description     Not Available
OS Manufacturer    Microsoft Corporation
System Name    WIN-NVP7QGR7CJN
System Manufacturer    Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
System Model    To be filled by O.E.M.
System Type    x64-based PC
System SKU    To be filled by O.E.M.
Processor    AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor, 4000 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date    American Megatrends Inc. FA, 10/28/2014
SMBIOS Version    2.7
Embedded Controller Version    255.255
BIOS Mode    UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer    Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
BaseBoard Model    Not Available
BaseBoard Name    Base Board
Platform Role    Desktop
Secure Boot State    Unsupported
PCR7 Configuration    Not Available
Windows Directory    C:\WINDOWS
System Directory    C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device    \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale    United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer    Version = "10.0.10041.0"
User Name    WIN-NVP7QGR7CJN\Justin
Time Zone    Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)    8.00 GB
Total Physical Memory    7.97 GB
Available Physical Memory    4.50 GB
Total Virtual Memory    9.22 GB
Available Virtual Memory    5.40 GB
Page File Space    1.25 GB
Page File    C:\pagefile.sys
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions    Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions    Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware    Yes
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection    Yes

[John]

You may well be our first tester on the windows 10 preview. I guess we will have to get another test machine.

[Justin]

Interesting, well... I'll likely be upgrading to the full release ASAP.
I'm going to run a few OS updates and make sure my chipset drivers are up to date and everything, but I'm fairly certain they are.

I'll be sure to provide any additional information as I discover it.

[AllenH]

I'm also using Windows 10 Preview running on Parallels Desktop on OsX 10.10.4.  [Another die-hard mac user... I leverage the unix subsystem for my research work.]

[ryanschram]

Same here. Windows 10 Preview on VirtualBox on OS X 10.11. The connectivity is spotty, I think I'll be pulling out the old crap-box work laptop with Windows 7 as the primary OS.

[AllenH]

Hi Ryan!  You mention that you have connectivity issues... I don't seem to be seeing that at all in Parallels.  I seem to be able to stay connected and connect easily in Parallels, and now have it set to hit the windows side immediately by passing the option to connect to the mac side with the dna200 via usb.  Seems to be working quite well.  But- I thought it might be important to mention the setup- perhaps only mac users are experiencing problems- time will tell.

[tshine187]

I am having a serious issue. I went to update my dna 200 and during the update my pc got unplugged(by my 8month old daughter). Now my chip wont turn on or anything. Escribe doesn't even say its plugged in. Please help.

[VapingBad]

Just try and reflash the firmware that has worked for others.

[John]

Yeah if it got unplugged halfway through, you should be okay, just do the manual update from Tools... Update firmware...

Should be okay. 

[Grover]

Well that scared the hell out of me!. Just updated to the latest version of escribe, the board reconnected and a new firmware showed up. Started to update the firmware and my computer totally lost the plot. Everything locked up and I eventually had to reboot the computer. On restarting, my dna pcb was totally DEAD, the computer recognised a usb being plugged in, but escribe wouldn't recognise it. I was distraught, it took two weeks to get the board to New Zealand and I was thinking, two weeks to get it back, then another two weeks to get another one.. I was not a happy boy when I went to bed!
Fortunately while the board was on it's way here, I read nearly every post on this forum.. whew there's lots.
Sure enough, I remembered some posts here, went to the tools menu and update firmware manually..  it's alive again!
Thank you John and team, I should have known that there is not much that you haven't thought of.