Symmetricom S200 Teardown/upgrade to S250

[notfaded1]

This is great stuff!  I just got a 1520-200-rb.  It boots up and I can get it DHCP address but I can't reach the webpage or telnet or ssh to it.  I'm not sure what's going on but I'm going to get a new 512M card and reader for PC and make a new OS for it and try that.  I can't get it lock onto any GPS satellites at all even though it says antenna is ok.  Mine has the factory x72 in it.  It's currently got 1.11 version on it.  I'm going put newer fresh OS saved on a new 512 CF card to hopefully get it going correctly and allow me to get to webpage and set it up right.  The fact that I can see ntp packets on the status page and it picks up a DHCP address makes me think it is on the network but no webpage and no ping of the ip or ability to ssh or telnet to it.  I have ordered a USB to db9 serial cable because that was my next place to try when I found my old friends here at EEVBlog.  Idk why I didn't look here first!  Fingers crossed but you guys give me hope and since I have an original 1520-200-rb I gotta get this baby working.  Mine has the gt-8031f in it and x72 rubidium occillator.

Thanks,

Bill

[notfaded1]

Looks like mine is just like yours... 1520-200-rb!  I want the new Jack's too!  Gotta have the all the 250 outputs!
Just ordered the industrial 512mb CF card and 4 of the dual RF Connectors / Coaxial Connectors BNC RA DBL ISOL 50 Ohm Backplate Valox from mouser:
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/523-31-6577

I couldn't do this without my friends here at EEVBlog!  Mega props!
Bill

[notfaded1]

Here the inside of mine... My pics are so big and high res from my pixel phone only one attachment will fit.  Pixel takes great photos though.  Blow up the picture you can read everything.  I ordered one of those dji osmo 2 gimbals because I'm convinced now the pixel phone cameras are the best for pics and video... Even better than many video cameras and even full body cameras.

Bill

[notfaded1]

please be aware if the X72 firmware version is ealier than 5.x you can not use the 1PPS in signal, the latest seems is 5.08

Can you update x72 firmware?

[SoundTech-LG]

Your greatest effort will be finding FW, and how to perform the upgrade. Microsemi / Microchip will be of NO help. You might ask Mark (TexasPyro) he knows quite a bit about these...

[notfaded1]

I'm not sure how important the 1PPS IN is actually... what's the main purpose of that if you already have GPS sync and the RB running?  For the 1 PPS IN to be of value it has to have better pull-range than the current sync'd oscillator correct?

And the typical system oscillator pull-ranges are:

TCXO 1E-6 (1 ppm)
OCXO 5E-7 (0.5 ppm)
Rubidium 1E-9 (1 ppb)

I'm not sure how you'd ever need the 1PPS in unless it was coming from a cesium clock or something?

Thanks again,

Bill

[notfaded1]

Does anyone know if there's a way to identify the newer x72 rubidium occillators that may have newer firmware?  By label or something?  I've noticed they don't all have same labels on them.  It'd be nice if there's a known newer one to buy.

Bill

[texaspyro]

Your greatest effort will be finding FW, and how to perform the upgrade. Microsemi / Microchip will be of NO help. You might ask Mark (TexasPyro) he knows quite a bit about these...

Once upon a time there was a guy offering to upgrade X72's on Ebay for around $30.   But he warned that not all units could be upgraded and if it didn't work the unit would be bricked.

[notfaded1]

I tried an industrial Delkin Devices 512MB CF card from the same manufacturer as my unit has... the Raw Copy didn't work because the image file says it's 524MB and the 512MB card has only a little over 500MB of usable space... so it cuts out around 92% as it can't write anymore?  I'm going to try a one gig industrial card for the heck of it because the only issue seems to be the size of the 512MB card.  I even tried using HDCopy to make an image of my current card and writing it back out to the new 512MB CF and it's just a little bit too big as well for the other card.  It seems the size on these cards varies greatly. 

Bill

[SoundTech-LG]

yup.  Does your new (to you) Industrial Delkin 512 have a matching part # ?
These cards are larger for sure. If you can get a 1GB card to work, I would be very surprised, and impressed. If that was the case, shouldn't any larger card work? No. Please let us know the results.

[notfaded1]

I'll let you know as soon as the 1Gig CF card comes and I try it... the image posted here says it's 524MB in HD Guru... i'm not sure how you got that to fit on a 512MB CF card which is around 500MB.  I can't believe buying the same brand 512MB Delkin industrial card didn't work for me.  I do have another 1520-S200 coming from ebay that works so it'll hopefully have a good card in it.  I really want to get this image here for 1.36 working somehow but so far I don't have any card it'll fit on which is a real bummer.  I did get a usb to 9 pin serial adapter and got into the command line.  The version 1.11 running on my machine won't allow running the cat command.  I can go into "eng" and "sys" but running "cat" to try and get bash running just says command not found.  I tried doing the "http on" command and it runs but I can't reach the webserver or ping the server's IP at all on my network.  This is very strange because I see the display saying ntp packets are incrementing on status display.  The S200 says it's acquired an IP with DHCP and it gets the mask and gateway without issue.  I think the problem is this version 1.11 maybe.  From the command line I do see it knows it's an S200 and also knows it has the rubidium oscillator.  Fingers crossed the second S200 I bought has a newer version of code on it.  I still want to find some blank cards that will work.  If someone wants to sell a working CF with 1.36 on it I'll pay.  Or if someone knows a source of industrial 512MB CF's that really work I'd like that too.  I'll check the part number on my Delkin 512MB CF tonight when I get home from work.

Oh also on another note I did get the stacked jacks in the mail from mouser.  I bought 4 pairs before I bought the second S200 server.  I suppose I could put the extra one on one of the sets of pads on the second S200 when it comes.  They weren't exactly cheap but I bought an extra one just in case I messed one up soldering them in.  Shouldn't be a problem... I've got a Metcal MX5000 soldering station.  They use only Metcal soldering stations in our factories here at work... they work for space applications soldering under a scope so I figured it would work for me too!  I highly recommend them.  You can get the older MX5000 now for a decent price on ebay if you look around now that the MX5020 and now MX5050 have come out.  I bought an extra hand piece so I can have two irons with different tips running.

Thanks again SoundTech-LG and others here,

Bill

[SoundTech-LG]

Spent many hours with the limitations inherent in using CF cards in this hardware. I found generally the Symmetricom supplied Delkin 512 MB cards (that will hold at least 524MB) are no problem. I think I did find one type Transcend Industrial that would work. How to know if it will...  you just have to try. I believe Symmetricom made sure Delkin used a certain spec of CF for these units. I guess you have to try making your 1GB CF with the 524GB image on it, but doubtful it will work.

[testpoint1]

Does anyone know if there's a way to identify the newer x72 rubidium occillators that may have newer firmware?  By label or something?  I've noticed they don't all have same labels on them.  It'd be nice if there's a known newer one to buy.

Bill

one american guy can do the upgrade, charge 25 usd, you need to ship to him, but your X72's SN maybe later than 05xxxxxxxxx.

[SoundTech-LG]

Hard to know much about him, without info on him...

[testpoint1]

Hard to know much about him, without info on him...

PM you already.

[notfaded1]

Thanks a million SoundTech-LG, testpoint1 and everyone for that matter.  Well I took delivery of the second 1520-s200 today.  The good news is it's running v1.30 and I can reach the webserver on it for the first time!  I still can't believe a copy of the this working CF v1.30 won't fit on the delkin industrial 512mb CF card I bought but it's just too small... ain't never gonna work.  I'll try the 1G card when it comes but from what you've told me... it's probably not promising.  The only reason I can guess is these little VIA MB's these are made from have a bios and firmware that doesn't support 1G CF I suppose?  It seems like a bigger CF card should work with binary image written out to it... unless the hardware doesn't support the size of the CF card.  That's the only thing I can think would be a reason.  I wouldn't even know where to begin thinking about how to upgrade the firmware on the VIA motherboards BIOS in this embedded computer inside these Symmetricom Sync Servers!  It's possible there's a way but right now I'm going to try the gig card when it comes and keep searching for a source of 512MB CF industrial cards that have enough room.  There are really almost none on ebay from the USA... most are all from China you can find.  So it's like russian roulette... pull the trigger on the auction then wait for the slow boat to show up and hopefully... maybe it'll be right!!!  What a PITA.  If I find a good source I'm going to buy a lot of them and stash them for upgrading these symmetricom sync server because they're awesome little units!  Ironically I've found some of the rubidium oscillators they use in the newer s300 and s350 sync server cheaper than the x72 rubidium oscillators used in the s200 and s250.  Go figure!  Has anyone hacked away on the S300/S350 flavor yet?

Thanks again everyone... I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have if not with help from my brothers here at eevblog.         

I'll post pics of the non working same brand Delkin Industrial CF card so others can avoid my pitfall.

Bill

[notfaded1]

Here's the back of the bad Delkin 512mb CF card that's too small dag nabbit!

[notfaded1]

And the front...

Bill

[notfaded1]

On a better note... these came in the mail from Mouser the other day!   

[notfaded1]

Oh!  BTW... other great info... the v1.30 does allow running other unix command my v1.11 DID NOT!  I can run cat, rm, and cp now!  The newer version has many additional commands in the sys level of commands.  You can enter "eng" for engineering:

9 ? eng
10 ? ?
--------------------------------
Commands
--------------------------------
ACT
ALA
CLK
ETH
FTP
GPS
IP4
IP6
IPA
LFR
MODEM
NTP
OSC
REF
SNMP
SYS
TCO
intrinsic help
--------------------------------
11 ?

or "sys" for system:

11 ? sys
12 ? ?
--------------------------------
Commands
--------------------------------
CAT
CP
DAEMON
DISPLAYINIT
HALT
HTTP
HWREV
MODELNUMBER
OPTEXT
OPTIONS
REBOOT
RESTOREDFLT
RM
SAVECURRENT
SERIALNUMBER
SWVERSION
UPDATECRC
intrinsic help
--------------------------------
13 ?

The newer linux dist is actually less secure than the old one...

Bill

[notfaded1]

It sounds as if you have spent considerable time with these. One thing I noticed was your mention of using a larger CF card, such as a 1GB you mentioned. I could never get that to work. It would take the full 512k+ image ok, but would not boot the system at all, like a 512k Industrial would.

I've been able to get v1.36 to boot on a 1G compact flash card.  It's a:
Lexar
Professional
Compact Flash
with Write Acceleration
1GB
133x Speed it also has a Wa on lower right corner.  I'll post a pic of the card shortly.

[notfaded1]

It sounds as if you have spent considerable time with these. One thing I noticed was your mention of using a larger CF card, such as a 1GB you mentioned. I could never get that to work. It would take the full 512k+ image ok, but would not boot the system at all, like a 512k Industrial would.

Weird thing I had issues with many 512M CF cards trying to get them to boot but the 1GB one I used did boot up v1.36.  I still haven't found a 512MB card that can fit the v1.36 image.

Bill

[notfaded1]

yup.  Does your new (to you) Industrial Delkin 512 have a matching part # ?
These cards are larger for sure. If you can get a 1GB card to work, I would be very surprised, and impressed. If that was the case, shouldn't any larger card work? No. Please let us know the results.

The one Delkin card I bought that's too small even for the v1.30 image or even an older image I have says DDiCF51-U and 29094-1816 on the back of it.  You can see I've been trying a LOT of them.  These things are finicky.  /sbin/seeprom does work in the limited bash shell.  You can change the serial number and model number as well.

Bill

[SoundTech-LG]

Well that is certainly quite curious...  are you using HDD Raw Copy Tool to write the file image?

[notfaded1]

Well that is certainly quite curious...  are you using HDD Raw Copy Tool to write the file image?

Yes I used Raw Copy... same program.

Bill