NUE- USB Card Manual, ver 1.34
6
Copyright 2009, Midnight Design Solutions, LLC
IV. PROGRAMMING the USB Card
If you purchased the "assembled & tested" option for the USB Card, or if you had us do the "full factory
upgrade" for your modem, you do not need to program the USB card because it has already been done
for you. In this case, you can just skip ahead to the USING section.
However if you built your USB Card from a kit, you will need to follow the instructions below to program
software into the U1 chip on the USB card.
1)
VDPSFUL_V3_66_C01.ROM
— This is the file that needs to be placed into the VNC1L chip (U1) on
your NUE-USB card. It contains the firmware program that makes that U1 chip “smart” and able to talk to
the USB flash memory devices that we plug into our card.
NOTE: You must have the latest modem
software (v1.34f or later) loaded on your modem in order to use the USB card.
2)
VPROG.COM
– This is the program used to place the ROM file (above) into the U1 chip on the USB
card. It’s a simple application program run on your PC ... just connect your PC’s serial port to the 8-
position programming header you soldered onto the bottom of the USB card, per the dotted line insert in
the lower left of our USB schematic. I’ve shown the connections needed to allow the popular CP-2102
USB-to-TTL adapter that many of us are using, but any adapter may be used that proves the standard
RxD, TxD, CTS and RTS signals from the serial port. (Don’t forget to put the jumper from the GND pin to
the PROG pin on that connector, as this is the signal to the U1 bootloader that a new file is coming to it.)
When you run the VPROG program (e.g., just double-click the filename from your Windows Explorer
window), a small window will appear with a couple of items you need to specify ... the number of your
serial port, and the ROM file you wish to program into our U1 chip. (Just browse to the ROM file you
downloaded and select it.)
Then click “program” -- if your USB card was assembled correctly, and if you have the PC serial port
wired correctly to the 8-pin programming header, you will see a progress bar displayed on the PC screen
showing that the U1 chip is being programmed, and then verified. This only takes about 15 seconds to
occur.
Remove the serial adapter and cable from your card and place a shunt (jumper) on pins 4-5 of that same
8-position pinheader on the bottom of the USB card. (See photo at bottom of this page.)
You are now ready to install the USB card into your modem!
NOTE: (Only for 1
st
issue USB kits in 2008)
Easy Upgrade from A01 to C01 USB Firmware: If you
previously had "A01" firmware programmed into your USB card (done either by you during kit
assembly, or by us here at the factory), here is a super easy way to load the newer "C01" firmware
...
1)
Download the
C01 firmware
to your PC and unzip the file. The file
FTRFB.FTD
will be extracted and
you should copy this to your thumb drive when the modem is turned off.
2)
Turn on the modem and wait a few moments. The USB card will recognize the presence of the
FTRFB.FTD file on the thumb drive and it will reprogram itself (!!)
3)
Important: Remove the thumb drive, and using your PC,
delete the FTRFB.FTD file from the thumb
drive
... otherwise, you will always be (re)loading the C01 firmware to the USB card.
