PanelDue – Update firmware

In this post I’ll go through updating firmware on the PanelDue.

It’s really not that difficult, but as always, it can be a bit of a chore figuring out the location of and type of files we need to use.

What we need/in this post

• Current firmware version
• Know your PanelDue version (hardware)
• Get the latest correct firmware
• Erase and Reset PanelDue
• Write new firmware to PanelDue
  • Command Prompt
  • Using GUI
• PanelDue up and running
• Sources

You can check your current version by clicking Setup on your display. Mine was version 1.14 – This is in itself not important for this post, but just nice to know.

Know your PanelDue version

In order to figure out the version of PanelDue we own, we need to look at the back side of the PanelDue PCB.

Mine is V2 as can be seen here.

Get the latest correct firmware

Now we know the hardware version of our PanelDue, so lets go get the newest firmware for it from the PanelDueFirmware page

My screen is 4.3″ inches, so combine that with the version 2 and I need to get the file PanelDue-v2-4.3.bin

Program to update firmware

In order to update our firmware, we need to get a program called “Bossa”.

Go to their Github page and download the file fitting for your system and install it.

Erase and Reset PanelDue

Next step is to Erase and Reset the device to make ready for new firmware.
Some of these steps are taken from the official page.

• Press and hold the Erase button of the PanelDue for at least one second.
• Release the Erase button, then press and release the Reset button.
  • If you have a version 2.0 board then the backlight will turn off.

• Identify the COM port number or port name of the PanelDue board on your PC.
  If you use Windows, you can do this by pressing CTRL+Pause/Break or via Start->Control Panel->System->Device Manager.
  • Then expand Ports (COM and LPT), and look for Bossa port.
    
  • If you can’t find the port, try repeating the Erase and Reset sequence, or disconnecting and reconnecting the USB cable, or try a different USB port on your computer.

Write new firmware to PanelDue

We are going to use the program Bossa we downloaded and installed previously, but you can also use the command prompt.

I’ll list the command for the commandline option, but I have not tested it.

Command Prompt

Under Windows, open a command prompt and use this command:

Taken from the official page.

bossac.exe --port=COM4 -e -w -v -b PanelDueFirmware.bin

Options:

• -e, –erase erase the entire flash
• -w, –write write FILE to the flash; accelerated when
  combined with erase option
• -v, –verify verify FILE matches flash contents
• -b, –boot[=BOOL] boot from ROM if BOOL is 0;
  boot from FLASH if BOOL is 1 [default];
  option is ignored on unsupported devices

Using GUI

Run Bossa as Administrator and select the Serial Port we verified above.

• You must put a mark in Erase all, Boot to flash and Lock.
• Hit Write and wait for it to finish and click OK.
• Click the Verify button.

PanelDue up and running

Now hit the Reset button on the PanelDue PCB and display should come back online.

Remember to adjust baud to match your settings in your controllers firmware.

Sources

For full read on the Panel Due https://miscsolutions.wordpress.com/paneldue/
Bossa product page: http://www.shumatech.com/web/products/bossa