Flashing Tiny Frsky 8CH Receiver from Banggood… by David HK October 2016

Flashing Tiny Frsky 8CH Receiver from Banggood… by David HK October 2016

After my experience with flashing midelic DIY Frsky firmware to AC801/F810 (see link below),

http://davidhkblog1.blogspot.com/2016/09/flashing-diy-frsky-rx-ac801-f810-by.html

I feel more comfortable into doing it again, this time, to Banggood’s Tiny Frsky 8CH Receiver Compatible, which is a clone, and not supported by midelic, so do it at your own risks.

I bought this Tiny RX for my new Lantian 105 micro brushed build

RX: Tiny Frsky 8CH Receiver 

http://www.banggood.com/Tiny-Frsky-8CH-Receiver-Compatible-With-FRSKY-X9D-Plus-DJT-DFT-DHT-For-QX90-DIY-Micro-Quadcopter-p-1079963.html?p=3629013638443201601A

Steps:

1.       Install the driver for the USBASP programmer (if this is the 1^st time you use your USBASP)

To use the USBASP, need to install the USB driver (I am running win7), to do that, use zadig_2.2.exe (from below URL) which will install the driver while connected the USBASP.  In Options->List all devices, then you should see the usbasp driver to install.

http://zadig.akeo.ie/

for more details visit this link:  http://www.fischl.de/usbasp/

**warning: must made sure the USBASP is 3.3V output, not 5V (there is either a switch, or need to remove a resistor at the back of the USBASP, otherwise will fry your RX.

2.       Prepare the USBASP hardware and wiring:

The flashing pins in the RX is on the back right hand side, as in the photo below

MISO

+3V (note that some diagrams in rcgroup listed it as +5V, should be +3V)

MOSI

SCK

RST

GND

While in the USBASP, the 10 pins layout is shown in the diagram below:

So the mapping is per below:

RX	usbasp pins
MISO	10
+3V	1
MOSI	2
SCK	8
RST	6
GND	3

I used 6 servo wires to connect to the corresponding pins in the usbasp socket, sequentially so that the 6 wires can be lined up to match with the pins in the RX.  As the RX pins are very close together, I don’t think I can manage the soldering at this close, and this is supposed a one off flashing usage, so I decided to just hand hold the servo wires while flashing.  But the RX pins are closer than the width of the servo plastic connectors that line up together, so I need to take out the plastic connectors, then use tape to insulate the connectors and bound the wires together in a straight line, the width of the wire pins is just about the same as the RX pins. The whole flashing duration only last for 10 to 20 seconds, so I think I can manage with 2 hands holding, and asked my wife to help to click the “write” button to start the flash! J

3.       Actual flashing

Get the latest RX firmware from below link, I downloaded  FrskyRx_F801_TELEMETRY_PFS_SBUS_071016.hex

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=32959023&postcount=1147

I used the AVR Burn-O-Mat GUI to do the actual flashing, download from below link.  It requires Java runtime.

http://avr8-burn-o-mat.aaabbb.de/avr8_burn_o_mat_avrdude_gui_en.php

Steps:

1.       Click Settings -> AVRDUDE,

a.       set the avrdude.exe & avrdude.conf location (I’ve avrdude installed already when I installed the eepskye GUI for my Turnigy XR9 Pro tx radio)

b.      Programmer set to usbasp (http://www.fischl.de/usgasp/)

c.       Port set to your connected USB com port or just usb

2.       In main screen,

a.       set AVR type = ATmega328p

b.      under Flash, select the FrskyRx hex file that was downloaded from the RC group  (ie in my case, it is FrskyRx_F801_TELEMETRY_PFS_SBUS_071016.hex)

c.       under Flash, click the Write button - - this will do the actual flashing of the firmware!

It takes around 10-20 seconds, you will see Reading …. Writing …. Reading… where … are a few lines of notification of what it was doing, at the end you will see “avrdude.exe done. Thank you”. 

Note that with this RX, I only able to get RSSI telemetry but not the voltage telemetry, I guess I will leave it at that and use my radio timer to alert me when to land. Or the micro quad will lost power and fpv signal will drop! J