49 replies to this topic

[jbmaciel]

Okay, so I have the T48 here, software/driver installed, firmware updated.

Now working out how to connect it to the PIC in the hand-controller.  The software shows this:

 

T48_connections.jpg

 

But the earlier pin-out given for the 6-pins (J8) on the hand-controller appears to be wrong for this PIC.

Here is my hand-controller, with pins soldered onto the 6-pin ICSP pads.

I have traced the 6-pins to the PIC chip, and now labelled what is actually there.

Quite different from what was posted earlier:

 

hc.jpg

 

So now, my instinct would be to unplug the hand-controller from the mount, and then connect its 6-pin ICSP header as follows:

 

1 (VDD)   -->  T48 pin-13

2 (GND)   -->  T48 pin-16

3 (PGM)   -->  nothing

4 (MCLR)  -->  T48 pin-1

5 (PGC)   -->  T48 pin-3

6 (PGD)   -->  T48 pin-5

 

EDIT: Did that, and it worked.  It also worked when I used USB power instead of the VDD line.

I now have a 32KB flash image of the bootloader from the hand-controller.

 

j8-wiring.jpg t48-wiring.jpg

 

Notice that I used individual jumper wires, rather than the fancy 16-pin connector that came with the T48:  they number the pins incorrectly on their diagrams, so it was easier for me to keep things correct by using my own individual jumper wires.

Wonderful!

 

Thank you very much for the PIC memory dump file.

The programmers I have are outdated, they don't support the PIC18F85J10.

So I had to order a T48, which got stuck in the Customs (I had to pay Custom tax). I may get it by the end of the week.

 

Good that you check the ICSP pinout, It seems that Nexstar board doesn't follow the pinout widely available in the internet docs.

 

Let's see if I can wake up my Nexstar HC.

 

 

Thank you again,

Joselito Maciel.

[jbmaciel]

Okay, so I have the T48 here, software/driver installed, firmware updated.

Now working out how to connect it to the PIC in the hand-controller.  The software shows this:

 

T48_connections.jpg

 

But the earlier pin-out given for the 6-pins (J8) on the hand-controller appears to be wrong for this PIC.

Here is my hand-controller, with pins soldered onto the 6-pin ICSP pads.

I have traced the 6-pins to the PIC chip, and now labelled what is actually there.

Quite different from what was posted earlier:

 

hc.jpg

 

So now, my instinct would be to unplug the hand-controller from the mount, and then connect its 6-pin ICSP header as follows:

 

1 (VDD)   -->  T48 pin-13

2 (GND)   -->  T48 pin-16

3 (PGM)   -->  nothing

4 (MCLR)  -->  T48 pin-1

5 (PGC)   -->  T48 pin-3

6 (PGD)   -->  T48 pin-5

 

EDIT: Did that, and it worked.  It also worked when I used USB power instead of the VDD line.

I now have a 32KB flash image of the bootloader from the hand-controller.

 

j8-wiring.jpg t48-wiring.jpg

 

Notice that I used individual jumper wires, rather than the fancy 16-pin connector that came with the T48:  they number the pins incorrectly on their diagrams, so it was easier for me to keep things correct by using my own individual jumper wires.

I finally got the T48.

So I flashed the dump file you've sent me. The Nexstar+ is alive now, at first I had a package error, so I run the CFM latest version and I had 11 updates as before.

Everything was successful, the Nexstar+ HC is "back to the business"...

 

 

Thanks a lot my friend,

Joselito Maciel.

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 

Edited by jbmaciel, 07 September 2023 - 05:25 PM.

[mlord]

Excellent.  So now we both have a way to recover hand-controllers that suffer bad flash updates.

 

I think I should open up my StarSense HC and see if I can read out the bootloader from it as well.

EDIT: The StarSense HC uses a STM32F103ZCT6 chip, not supported by the T48.

 

The Evolution mount isn't supported by the T48.  But the flash memory in the CPU chip appears

to use standard SPI flash protocol, and I can easily program an ESP32 to read/write it.

So that's another thing for the "to do" list.

 

Cheers

Edited by mlord, 07 September 2023 - 09:32 PM.

[Orion68]

Wow, that was impressive gentlemen.

[OregonSky]

WOW  -  so far above what many of us could accomplish. 

But , what a great read. 

 

Might be an income source for your service to fix the bricks of others.   ?

[jbmaciel]

WOW  -  so far above what many of us could accomplish. 

But , what a great read. 

 

Might be an income source for your service to fix the bricks of others.   ?

 

I will be very happy to help others.

I live in Rio de Janeiro/Brazil.

 

Regards,

Joselito Maciel.

[js22]

Hello Joselito and mlord and others,

 

   I have a bricked NexStar+ hand controller.  I am interested in buying a T48 and trying the fix that you have done. (I also have a bricked AS-GT mount.....)

 

A few questions:

 

1) Could one of you send me the 32k image for the PIC?

2) Did you have to do anything with the other two chips mentioned, the 24LC64 EEPROM or the MX29LV160D  flash PROM ?

 

My guess is that the other two chips are flashed via the PIC and can be restored, if needed, using CFM.  But that is just a guess.

 

Thanks

 

[mlord]

The only thing I had to do was connect the T48 to the header pads for that purpose inside the hand-controller.  The 32K bootloader then gets flashed, and CFM does the rest.

 

The bootloader image is available, no worries.  I'll also take a brief look and see if there's a simple way to extract new images directly from the CFM/Packages files, which then makes copyright a non-issue.

 

Cheers

[mlord]

I'll also take a brief look and see if there's a simple way to extract new images directly from the CFM/Packages files, which then makes copyright a non-issue.

Yup, piece of cake.  The 32K bootloader dump matches BOOT_4.1.3160.cfm from CFM/Packages/Plus/ after one strips away the first 670 bytes of that file, and then pads the rest of it with all ones (0xff..).  Except for the final 8-bytes, which may or may not matter.

 

So since this is publicly available data, I don't see any problem in helping someone with it.  Message me if you need it.

 

Cheers
 

Edited by mlord, 06 December 2023 - 01:11 PM.

[js22]

Yup, piece of cake.  The 32K bootloader dump matches BOOT_4.1.3160.cfm from CFM/Packages/Plus/ after one strips away the first 670 bytes of that file, and then pads the rest of it with all ones (0xff..).  Except for the final 8-bytes, which may or may not matter.

 

So since this is publicly available data, I don't see any problem in helping someone with it.  Message me if you need it.

 

Cheers
 

Awesome.  Thanks!

[paulitoweb]

Hi,

I also had bricked my Nexstar+ 6SE hand controller.
What I need to buy to flash it is T48 programmer?
Can you help me to choose what to buy? I see many different prices…
Could this one be ok for the operation?
Thanks in advance

Paolo

[mlord]

It's a bit premature to be getting a T48 ...

 

EDIT:  Oh, wrong thread! 

I see that you have BRICKED the hand-controller now, so yes, the T48 can fix it.  Amazon and AliExpress have them, as well as some "clones".  The "real" ones are by "XGecu", so that's what I got.

 

Cheers

Edited by mlord, 31 January 2024 - 03:01 PM.

[paulitoweb]

It's a bit premature to be getting a T48 -- we don't know for sure if it will work for correcting the firmware issue.

 

Amazon has them, as does AliExpress.

 

Cheers

Hi Mark, are you suggesting me to buy a brand new hand control?

 

regards,

Paolo

[paulitoweb]

Hi Mark and Joselito,

 

I got the programmer and in the next days I will try to resume my hand contro, I let you know hot it end 

 

thank you for the useful information, think the Celestron support told me to buy another one...

 

regards,

Paolo

[paulitoweb]

Hi guys, hand control is now restored. Thank you for your help!
Paolo

[hiperco]

I've made an attempt at recovery, but so far I am unsuccessful.  The programming appeared to complete properly.  But the display shows garbage now,  and CFM fails with a "device memory corrupted" message as before.  Forcing boot mode does not change the display.  I also made my own copy of the boot image per your instructions, the resultant file was identical so it seems that my boot image is not corrupted.  Any ideas?

 

 

 

 

 

Attached Thumbnails

• 
• 

[mlord]

Factory reset of the HC?  There's a key combo for that.

[mlord]

Also, I think you must ERASE the flash before programming it.

You can try that, even though the read-back shows that it was fine.

[hiperco]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I tried the ERASE function separately per your idea (even though it appears from the messages that ERASE was performed as part of the programming originally).  Factory reset (holding '0') doesn't change anything, nor does forcing boot mode (holding "7' and the logo button).  Rats.

[mlord]

Right.  So perhaps the problem really is bad RAM, or a bad (main) FLASH memory chip?

[mlord]

Want to sell me your busted HC?  I could use the spare parts!

[Thrifty1]

Does this happen very often with updating NexStar controllers? Mine work great but are older versions. I’ve been warned to not update them if they work fine as “many times” they get bricked. I’ve updated dozens of Meade hand controllers over the years but am afraid to update my Celestron ones.

[mlord]

Does this happen very often with updating NexStar controllers? Mine work great but are older versions. I’ve been warned to not update them if they work fine as “many times” they get bricked. I’ve updated dozens of Meade hand controllers over the years but am afraid to update my Celestron ones.

This latest failure was not due to updating it.  It just died in use.  See the origin of it here:  https://www.cloudyni.../#entry13526846

 

Other than that, there was a brief flurry of perhaps 3-4 failures in total a year ago, when a bad version of the Celestron Firmware Manager (CFM) was in circulation.  That has since been further updated/fixed, and I don't recall seeing many issues since then.

 

People are not always accurate in describing the events that lead to a failure, and also tend to just jump on existing topics with "me too" when the actual cause/issue is often different.

 

Cheers

[hiperco]

Right.  So perhaps the problem really is bad RAM, or a bad (main) FLASH memory chip?

 

Things have degraded since attempting the flash.  Before I would at least boot to the "Invalid Package" screen, and the boot mode, factory reset, etc would still register.  In hindsight I should have read out a copy of the flash first.   I wonder if the newer bootloader is somehow incompatible with the version of software presently loaded on the controller.  

Edited by hiperco, 14 July 2024 - 06:10 PM.

[jbmaciel]

Things have degraded since attempting the flash.  Before I would at least boot to the "Invalid Package" screen, and the boot mode, factory reset, etc would still register.  In hindsight I should have read out a copy of the flash first.   I wonder if the newer bootloader is somehow incompatible with the version of software presently loaded on the controller.  

 

Hello Everyone,

 

Sorry, I've been away...

 

 

hiperco, which HC do you have? NXS-U or GEM-U?

Both HC looks the same but the firmware are different and I think they are not interchangeable.

 

I just came back from vacation in Orlando/FL and I brought a Advanced VX, equatorial mount, which came with a HC GEM-U version.

 

 

 

Regards.