Atmel Flashing Tool from HobbyKing

Developer

Adam Rivera January 9, 2013 at 7:13am

René Jean:

In order to change the refresh rate, you need to flash them. The simonK firmware is great. Give it a shot!

Developer

Mark Colwell September 21, 2012 at 7:43am

I got mine too, nice professional grade tool for $20!

Contacts pins with sharp star tips, You must hold against AT328 for entire programming cycle.

I added a mark to align tool with reference dot on AT328 chip.

Developer

John Arne Birkeland September 20, 2012 at 2:39pm

I got the adapter tool yesterday, and I highly recommend getting one.

Flashed six of my spare ESC's in less time then it would normally take to program just one of them.

It literally takes a minute to flash a ESC now, including removal of heat shrink tube and applying a new on when you are done programming.

Rob_Lefebvre September 12, 2012 at 5:42am

Thanks guys, I'll look into it.

Is there any real possibility of bricking these things, as long as I'm using the right firmware?

Developer

John Arne Birkeland September 12, 2012 at 5:34am

R_Lefebvre: If you just want to flash the SimonK firmware, there is a nice how-to here.

http://wiki.openpilot.org/display/Doc/Flashing+Instructions

Rob_Lefebvre September 11, 2012 at 1:51pm

I got this programmer:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=...

I'm running windows, and hope I don't need to use any command line nastiness.

Moderator

Mark Harrison September 9, 2012 at 1:14pm

R_, here's some notes on how I use my AVR programmer.

http://eastbay-rc.blogspot.com/2011/11/hobbyking-kkboard-notes.html

http://eastbay-rc.blogspot.com/2011/10/ftdi-and-avr-cables.html

HobbyKing KKBoard Notes

For $25, I couldn't resist getting one of the Hobby King V2 KKBoards . The minimalist elegance of 3 gyros, 3 pots, and 4K of AVR Assembl...

Rana September 8, 2012 at 10:00pm

I wish, if they had socket -cable for ATMEGA64 !

Cliff-E September 8, 2012 at 9:52pm

I have one. Very nice tool. Works well with a AVR Dragon or AVR MKII. We're a Linux shop, so command line avrdude is a super simple one liner process.Fyi, you want to flash your esc with a 4.8V or 1S battery pack, then reboot on that battery pack to verify the flash: it's to avoid the risk of loading the wrong firmware and burning a FET). If you have an ESC with 6 pads in a row, a simple clamp-style mechanism works just as good--heck, that's the way Mikrokopter does it for their BL-CTRL's!!

We use the 20 & 30A blue series here as our main ESC. Which are the same as the mysteries brands EXCEPT THE FETS (HK uses N, Mystery uses N or P/N). Out of the box (no flashing) they can be run at 16Khz, which quiets the motors and smooths out the rpm transitions--a HUGE difference for multicopters. So, the simonk firmware doesn't add much to the table there. But for other ESCs, having 16Khz motor freq via simonk's firmware is a huge win.

What the simonk firmware adds:

Hardcoded range for throttle value (0-1000, always, after calibration). Straight launches now guaranteed. We can now even mix and match HK/Blue/Red/Mystery escs on one copter!
Acceleration delay removed (every ESC has a ramp up/down on input change, which slowed reaction times). Improves loiter.
Any low pass filters removed (will now truly process the 490Hz signal). Improves overall performance.
low-voltage cutoff removed (pros and cons)
brakes and governor stuff removed (just in case the ESC defaults)
linear pwm signal to the motors (better reaction times and helps the PID controller "work better"). Improves alt-hold.

What the simonk firmware breaks:

No voltage cut-off/monitor (better hook up the battery monitor!)
once you flash it--can't go back
defaults to medium timing w/o a code change (running out of the box blue series, I can run 16Khz and high timing--so I can have more thrust with the OEM firmware).
no rotation reverse option (the OEM firmware has it). wire it right the 1st time...
yes, it does have problems with low KV "pancake" motors, or basically [any] motors with more than 14 poles. Why? like due to running them at 16Khz. The high end motors are optimized at 12Khz typically (Why? I dunno)

Also, FYI, castle creations has their new made-for-multicopter ESCs, but they are fairly new (3months old)--same as the wii-esc firmware (less than 6 mos). What simonk/quax's f/w offers is some sense of reliability since it's been around more than a year with good results.