Thursday, 12 May 2011

Fez Mini first start -> first firmware upgrade

Last week I received my Fez Mini and yesterday I decided to play with it a little bit. I wanted to move a servo motor. The Wiki in tinyclr.com has already a servo driver so I decided to go with it (http://www.tinyclr.com/downloads/Component/FEZ_Components_ServoMotor.cs)
It is a pretty simple peace of code but I had a problem deploying it on the board - no error while compiling or deploying, but it stays in "Rebooting..." for a while and then exits the program. Firstly, I thought that my wiring was wrong but after checking it several times nothing seems to be misplaced. In .NET Micro Framework folder in Program Files there is a helpful tool MFDeploy that you can use to diagnose your board. Starting "Reboot and Stop" command resulted in many errors explaining that the assemblies version of GHI NETMF I am trying to use differs from the version board expected.
Here is the thing you need to do if you have the same problem:
  1. Go to http://tinyclr.com/dl/ and read the BIG RED warning :"Update your firmware.
    This is a common mistake made by first time users. If you don't update your device's firmware your program will fail to deploy."
  2. Download the newest version of GHI NETMF SDK and install it.
  3. One picture is worth a million words .. what about a video. This 8 minute video will show you the right way to update your firmware which is pretty easy: http://youtu.be/a3N0nQRWb08. You can apply this method not only to Fez Mini but with other FEZ boards.

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