Originally Posted by cgpirre

I'm also a very happy smartieparts customer, great product, fast delivery, well worth the money!

Ditto on that !

I have a FlySky and a Turnigy 9X radio. I aready had the HK Backlight installed in them, so it was just a matter of soldering the connector to the backlight and plugging it in to the Smartieparts board.

I flashed the flySky with ER9X and I'm familiarizing myself with the programming features using eepe.

The ER9X is a significant improvement over the original software.

But, you already knew that . .


Thanks again to all those who make this hobby so much fun !

Wow, great thread, I can't read it all of course, but I now have my second 9X (first one will remain stock, to prove that a stock 9x is a fine radio), my SP board, and the blue LED backlight from HK. Now I have to get around to installing it among my many RC projects! I might wait till fall when it is pleasant to work in the garage, it's horrible out there now, and probably why I have so many unfinished projects. I'm assuming the LED backlight will work fine with the SP board? Will I be able to use the dimmer function?

Thus far, at least as I am aware, none of the firmwares yet support the dimming function. Both the SmartieParts and the radio's hardware supports it, but it needs integration via the radio's firmware. I have nothing to do with that firmware. The users have to want it, ask for it, help write it, etc... for the various firmware packages out there.

It shouldn't be hard to implement. Its just a matter of sending a PWM signal instead of an on/off signal from the appropriate pin on the radio.

- Steven

Originally Posted by s_mack

You know what... that's the second time I've had that complaint. That kind of thing is unacceptable. I'm sorry I didn't notice, but they are SUPPOSED to be all double checked and tested at the factory! Someone's getting fired. OK, probably not... but still... sorry for that

- Steven

Its all good

After I found the problem it was a quick fix still recommending your product to everyone I know thats into RC.

I'm wondering if someone has an idea what I'm doing wrong or what is wrong with my install.

I have installed the LIBusb driver successfully (no yellow tag in the device menu).
I'm using Windows 7 64
I have cleaned the contacts on the motherboard of the Tx9 transmitter
I have installed the SP board. (nice setup)
When I plus the USB cable into the SP connector, the driver is loaded ok and beeps.
I downloaded the latest eePe software.
Change the configuration to USB, tried Blank as well. Heard sometimes Win 7 had issue with USB.
I have tried with the Tx9 on & off, I believe with SP 2.2 you need to power up the Tx9

The problem is nothing happens when I go to Write the e9x firmware via eePe.
No Error message just a blank box.
Cannot read the firmware, same thing just blank log screen with no errors.

Any help would be appreciated.

It seems to me that when people experience that problem, it turns out to be something with the software not knowing the location of avrdude. I'm sure someone who's experienced it can give a better answer, but my thought would be to uninstall eepe, install it again but right click and run-as administrator, and install it to a "normal" location (c: drive in case you were trying a different one). You may want to ask in the firmware thread. This is a software/pc configuration issue and nothing to do with the add-on board specifically.

Originally Posted by s_mack

It seems to me that when people experience that problem, it turns out to be something with the software not knowing the location of avrdude. I'm sure someone who's experienced it can give a better answer, but my thought would be to uninstall eepe, install it again but right click and run-as administrator, and install it to a "normal" location (c: drive in case you were trying a different one). You may want to ask in the firmware thread. This is a software/pc configuration issue and nothing to do with the add-on board specifically.

Thanks for your quick reply...this seems to rule out an issue with the SP board.

Originally Posted by s_mack

It seems to me that when people experience that problem, it turns out to be something with the software not knowing the location of avrdude. I'm sure someone who's experienced it can give a better answer, but my thought would be to uninstall eepe, install it again but right click and run-as administrator, and install it to a "normal" location (c: drive in case you were trying a different one). You may want to ask in the firmware thread. This is a software/pc configuration issue and nothing to do with the add-on board specifically.

Fixed, thanks for the hints. I did install default but the default configuration where the avrdude was in a totally different directory than in the eePe configuration. Once I found it and pointed to the right location it worked like a charm.

Cool. Glad I could point you in a direction at least and you got it fixed!

- Steven

While a super board at a fair price and great design (thank you Steven), I now have no use for the EL back light. That said, does anyone know how to disable the EL driver on the SP board? I am going the LED route and do not need the current use from the driver.
TIA

Simple... don't use it

If you are just using a HK LED backlight as its designed - that is, unmodified and just turns on/off when your radio is on/off - then there's no need to do anything at all. Simply don't use the backlight feature in the firmware settings.

If you're planning on using the PB7 pad on the 9x mainboard for switching your LED light on/off... then remove the VDD pin on the SmartieParts board or simply stick a piece of electrician's tape over it so its not getting a signal from the pad.

If you're planning on using the PB7 pad AND want to use the SmartieParts VDD pin to make that connection, then you'll have to cut the trace leading away from the VDD pin

Bottom line - the VDD pin provides the signal to the driver to turn on. If it doesn't get that signal, consider it "disabled".

- Steven

I got my backlight and programmer working reliably by ditching the spring contacts and use soldering instead... until I installed a new revision of my open 9X software, now I'm back to no backlight at all, and I have no clue about what could be wrong...
Can't put on new software at the moment because all wires connecting the board to the usb have let go at the usb connector board... Will replace with more flexible wires and hope someday my troubles will end.... All suggestions welcomed....
Oh, is there a diagram around about what goes where from the board connector to the usb print in the battery compartment?

suggestion #1: If you have a problem with a product, consider contacting the store where you bought it before hacking it apart! Out of now close to 4000 people who have bought one of these, you're the first I've heard of that went about "ditching the spring contacts and using soldering instead". The whole point of this is those spring contacts. And they are very reliable. If you're going to ditch those, you may as well just buy a $6 programmer off eBay as you've defeated 100% of the purpose of the SmartieParts board.

Its also the very first time I've heard of the "wires connecting the board to the usb" having "let go". I had a batch a while back where the header itself wasn't soldered properly and the whole thing would snap off the tiny board, but the wires are... well... wires. Nothing paticularly non-flexible about them. They're not silicone, which are very flexible (but not spec'd for USB) but the flexibility, or lack thereof, really shouldn't have any affect on how the solder holds at the joint.

Re: backlight. How do you have it connected now?

Your post's wording makes it sound like you've been struggling with this for a long time. I looked back the past 10 pages or so and see nothing from you. Did you ever contact me directly to resolve any of the problems?

- Steven (smartieparts guy

Originally Posted by s_mack

.. Did you ever contact me directly to resolve any of the problems?

- Steven (smartieparts guy

Hi Steven ,

Yes , I contacted you and you were very helpful, but my problems were not solved.Most of my posts are in the Turnigy 9X thread( see one here :http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...postcount=8010) . Please read what I am writing without immediately getting angry. I had some trouble in the beginning, I could get either the connection for programming or my backlight to work, but never both at the same time. If you look (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/searc...7375449&query=) good you will find all of my messages. I got tired of that ( and pointed out I was not holding a grudge, just needed instant gratification) and had my friend solder connections. Everything then worked ok. So I do not understand why you ask about my backlight connection, it worked ok until I changed software, I did not touch any of the hardware( apart from the usb connection wires that broke off again ( they break just at the solder connection), but I don't see how that could influence my back light) So all I'm politely asking is if I can see a wiring diagram somewhere on the net so I can restore my connection, and a rather desperate question about how the software can make my backlight stop working (I seem to be the only one with that problem again, maybe people should avoid me as a client...).

I searched my emails and found only two matching your account and they were both pre-purchase questions (what color backlight, etc). The backlight and the programming functions are entirely separate. One working (or not) has no bearing on the other working (or not) and they should be trouble-shot independently. I'm fairly certain that you have a Rev 2.1 kit, which means EL backlight circuitry. My troubleshooting guide for that is here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1432042

I know you think you're certain its software... but (and I don't meant this to be rude) from some of your posts, I don't think you have a clear understanding of the hardware in general so it wouldn't be a bad idea to go through the steps and conclusively determine where the problem lies. If it is the software and I had to guess, I would suggest that maybe the developers are forgetting that previous to Rev 2.2 the backlight functioned differently. With Rev 2.1, the light turned on when the backlight pin was high. Starting with Rev 2.2, the light turns on when the backlight pin is low. So in ER9X, for example, there is a setting to "invert" the backlight. I don't know if there is anything similar in open9x but look for it.

- Steven