USB BLASTER (FTDI245 vs ch552x) Quartus “No Hardware”

[noQuitter]

I have clone usb blasters from aliexpress. Some use FTDI245 chips whereas others use ch552x chips. The ones that are based on FTDI245 chip work fine. But for the ch552x blasters they are not recognized by quartus

Problem with ch552x clone blaster:
-Device manger does recognize them (attached figure 1).
-Quartus shows “No Hardware” message in the programmer window (attached figure 2).

And what makes it even worse is that the ch552x based blaster seems to dominate the clone market now and it became harder to find an FTDI based clone blaster.
From what I found online is that a lot of people are sharing the same problem but I wonder if anyone has figured it out.
Please share your thoughts on this. Thanks!

[Mark]

Try installing different versions of the stand-alone programmer.  I had problems with win 10 drivers and needed QuartusProgrammerSetup-23.1std.0.991-windows to make my clone blasters work. 

[radiolistener]

My usb-blaster from aliexpress has PIC18F14K50.

It works ok with Quartus.

I remember that I heard some rumors that there are different usb-blasters on aliexpress and some of them didn't recognized, someone suggested to install drivers from an old Quartus version, but I'm not sure if it helps, because my one works ok just out of the box.

[Wiljan]

I read somewhere that the clones does not have the same logic level as the original. That can give problems depending on the actually fpga  board connected.
I would suggest to use a scope to see happens on the jtag.

[coromonadalix]

do they get recognized with the vid pid ??   FTDI had some memory on their ic to register  any vid pid you wanted

[radiolistener]

Here is firmware and schematic of usb-blaster with PIC18F14K50 like my one:
https://gist.github.com/TCWORLD/6fa3ab7cf97a63db882845c53dd6e195

[noQuitter]

@radiolistener, @coromonadalix, @Wiljan , @Mark

Thank you all for your comments. I'll try some of these tips and share my findings.

[noQuitter]

@coromonadalix

the device manger does recognize the "vid/pid" pair, here is the hardware id that the device manger shows:

USB\VID_09FB&PID_6001&REV_0400
USB\VID_09FB&PID_6001
 

[nirvana]

Hi guys, I bought this clone ch552 one and it didn't worked. I found this firmware https://github.com/VladimirDuan/CH55x-USB-Blaster. TMS pin is different in software I changed to correct one and build. here is the bin file I tested max v cpld it programmed successfully. you have to download https://www.wch-ic.com/downloads/WCHISPTool_Setup_exe.html to programmed ch552g and we need to start bootloader mode for this open the programmer case and connect 20-30K ohm resistor between D+ and 3.3V during power on. wchipstool should be recognize and you should add bin file to download section and press download button for program. I publish everything on github page later.

[nirvana]

For this issue github.com/dougg3 do the same thing to solve this problem and fix some extra things so I forked dougg3's repo. this is my repo https://github.com/dsm/USB-Blaster_CH552 and I added all firmware files and github action to build and release binary files.

[mon2]

Could you please check your shared link for github? See 404 when clicked. Thanks for your project.

[nirvana]

sorry I changed repo name after publish it https://github.com/dsm/USB-Blaster_CH552