East Tester ET4410&ET4510 Desktop LCR Meter

[w.v.s.]

Did test with a pl2303 based USB to RS232 cable under windows and have the same observation: 'LCR_setup(English)'-software does communicate over RS232, but firmware upgrade shows no difference to no device connected via RS232 at all. I'll verify the instructions, but so far I am not aware of doing something fundamentally different.

[Martin72]

I also don't know what else is needed for the program to run apart from functioning communication.

[w.v.s.]

Here are the translations of the button and the windows, that shows up when the try fails.

[coromonadalix]

some pl2303   will not work,  you have to be sure  witch 2303 revision you have,  try to find ftdi  ones or ch340 based cables

[w.v.s.]

Neither a with a strace in wine nor with the SerialPortMonitor in Windows 8, I see any indication, that the firmware update program is even trying to open the specified serial port. Maybe it is worth trying an old 32-bit Windows machine?

[Martin72]

some pl2303   will not work,  you have to be sure  witch 2303 revision you have,  try to find ftdi  ones or ch340 based cables

I have a working connection to the RS232 port of the ET4410, the remote software runs without any problems.

[w.v.s.]

Almost the same behavior with a centrino XP machine. Firmware setup program does not send anything. Other programs do. One strange thing: One terminal program can receive serial data correctly, but gets stuck when it tries sending. Handshaking lines look a bit strange, too, but hardware flow control was disabled. Same program worked on Windows 8.

[w.v.s.]

some pl2303   will not work,  you have to be sure  witch 2303 revision you have,  try to find ftdi  ones or ch340 based cables

I have a working connection to the RS232 port of the ET4410, the remote software runs without any problems.

Just for the sake of a full picture: What chip is your USB-RS232 based on? My PL2303 is a rather old one, for which driver support was closed 12 years ago. But SCPI communication with the ET4410 works also fine with it.

[JohanH]

Did you try to turn off DEP (Data Execution Prevention) in Windows, because the firmware update program clearly tried to execute heap memory under wine, which caused some errors. If DEP is active, it could prevent some of the functionality. Doesn't hurt to try turning it off.

[w.v.s.]

Did you try to turn off DEP (Data Execution Prevention) in Windows, because the firmware update program clearly tried to execute heap memory under wine, which caused some errors. If DEP is active, it could prevent some of the functionality. Doesn't hurt to try turning it off.

On my Windows 8 machine, the selected DEP setting is "Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services only"

[Martin72]

Just for the sake of a full picture: What chip is your USB-RS232 based on?

It´s a digitus DA-70156 with FTDI chip.
I can't imagine that it makes any difference, as I can access the RS-232 port of the device (the LCR software works).
And does anyone have any tips on how I can make the Chinese characters visible?

[w.v.s.]

I also had to install and register MSCOMM32.ocx.

Hey, I have a little breakthrough: I was looking through the thread for the windows hint on Chinese localization and saw JohanHs hint, that he needed MSCOMM32.ocx. I installed and registered that in wine, too and now for the first time the firmware upgrade application is sending data on the com port (in a loop). 

[coromonadalix]

geez

theses  ocx and some dll are old as the world ??  They are ActiveX components ??

may need   SCOMM32.OCX  too ?

[w.v.s.]

may need   SCOMM32.OCX  too ?

I guess not. Strings with COMM are:

Code: [Select]

IMSComm
MSCommLib_TLB=
TMSComm
TMSComm
MSCommLib_TLB
MSCommLib_TLB


[w.v.s.]

and here is what strace sees wine sending out to the port:

Code: [Select]

write(13, "\33BT96\5", 6)               = 6
write(13, "z", 1)                              = 1
write(13, "\33BT96\5", 6)               = 6
write(13, "z", 1)                              = 1
write(13, "\33BT96\5", 6)               = 6
write(13, "z", 1)                              = 1
...

I think the first line means " 1b 42 54 39 36 05 " in hex (confirmed).

And this can be found here in the update program

Code: [Select]

00073290  06 00 00 00 1b 42 54 39  36 05 00 00 ff ff ff ff  |.....BT96.......|
000732a0  01 00 00 00 7a 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff  |....z...........|

So, starting at 0x73294

if we also consider the next line, the z might be at 0x732a4.
The first number in the line corresponds to the number of bytes. Could be a coincidence, however.

[Martin72]

So, who has managed to get the firmware software to run and how?
I can do what I want here, it just doesn't work and I still don't know how to make the Chinese font visible.

[w.v.s.]

I just set the locale to traditional Chinese in a virtual machine so that I could identify the message. (see pictures)

James told what he did to see Chinese letters in that post.
Did you register the MSCOMM32.ocx? It made my software communicating, but I did not try with the real device yet.
I've copied the MSCOMM32.ocx file from the archives that came with the firmware and then followed these instructions:
https://www.ocxme.com/files/mscomm32


The expected first answer from the device might be '[2]' by the way.

[w.v.s.]

Since I am less used to Windows, and it being not such a nice OS,  , I took at bit longer to get the firmware setup software talking in Windows ( 8 ). This is what I did:
Copied the MSCOMM32.OCX from the archive that came with the firmware into the same directory as the firmware setup program.
Then, started the PowerShell with admin rights and then typed:

Code: [Select]

C:\windows\system32\regsvr32.exe .\MSCOMM32.OCX
I closed the window telling about the registration success.
Then I started the setup-program also with admin rights. It then sent out the described messages over my USB-RS232-Interface cable.

[Martin72]

I think I've shot down my ET4410....
It finally worked, but since I can't read what's in the window and I saw that my ET4410 has a dark screen, I thought it had no power - and unplugged it and plugged it back in.
I'm afraid this means that the device is broken.

[w.v.s.]

  Sorry to read that! A little on the positive side is that your 4510 is on its way. How long did you wait before unplugging it? Did you check if it is still reacting on anything over the serial port? Maybe it is stuck in that update mode and we can finish the process, when we have a better understanding of the upgrade process.

[Martin72]

As I said, the screen remains dark.
But:
Something still seems to be happening, because I called up the program again later and connected the device.
At least switching it off and on again seems to be registered by the program, because the screen I photographed appears afterwards.
There are 2 Cortex ARM4 MCUs in the ET4410.
All the communication interfaces go to the MCU on the front board.
From there it goes to the mainboard, I assume an internal serial communication between the two MCUs.
I have little hope of a reasonable answer, but I wrote to East Tester earlier to ask if and what could be done.
After all, the ET4510 will arrive next week, then we'll see if it's just the firmware that differentiates the two.
If so, I can swap between the boards to see which MCU is "hanging" on the 4410.

[w.v.s.]

End result was:

程序下载完成！
程序下载用时：347秒

(Program download complete!
Program download time: 347 seconds)

Let's compare your picture with that from this post. Where was your progress bar?

[w.v.s.]

So these might have been the (hopefully not very) last words:

[Martin72]

I´ll try it again...

[w.v.s.]

Good luck!