Power Flarm Display

On Tuesday, December 18, 2012 9:56:36 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Monday, December 17, 2012 2:43:38 PM UTC-5, Evan Ludeman wrote:

On Monday, December 17, 2012 2:06:01 PM UTC-5, bumper wrote:



On Monday, December 17, 2012 9:02:00 AM UTC-8, wrote:







I'm confident enough that its not going to be a problem that I plan to fabricate a RJ12-DB9 cable and give it a whirl.































Frank (TA)































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Aktualisiert von: Frank Paynter, 14. Dez 15:40 (CET):















Hi,































I would like to update the firmware on my PowerFlarm Butterfly display, but















I'm a bit confused by the directions for fabricating the required update















cable. Note that I'm an Electrical Engineer with over 40 years of bench















design and fabrication experience, so if I'm confused, I expect others are















as well.































The instructions provide a pinout for the display-end connector, with notes















as to where each pin should go on the PC end. However, the PC-end















connector isn't specified - is it supposed to be a DB9 serial connector?















If so, you must know that DB9 serial connectors aren't widely available on















modern PC's; I have 6 PCs in my home office, and not one of them has a DB9















serial connector. When I need serial port connectivity, I use a popular















USB-serial adapter. Will your display update properly when using such an















adapter?































Your specification calls for pin 5 of the RJ-12 connector to be tied to















+3.3VDC, but this isn't a common voltage for serial communications. What















happens if this line is connected to +5 or even +12 VDC?































Regards,































Frank























Frank,















Please post an update if all goes well. I prefer not to tune my device for maximum smoke if there is some other brave soul willing to go first!















tks















bumper







You guys do know about this, yes? (From external display manual)







"Updates



Update through PowerFLARM®



After Q4/2012 it will be possible to update the displays through any PowerFLARM® unit



directly without the need for a special cable."







-Evan Ludeman / T8



Evan,



Just saw this myself in the Butterfly manual - wonder why they didn't mention this in the response to my email?



Frank (TA)

Hi Frank, I built my update cable several weeks ago (for the last update and to download flarmnet info) and it worked just fine with 2 AA batteries (just as someone else mentioned in this thread). RS232 adapters don't ever work well for me on laptops so the only reliable serial port I have is on my desktop. Since my rectangular display is screwed to my panel with the 4 provided screws I think I will wait until the post-Q4-instructions to magically appear just to save the hassle of un-mounting the display yet again.