Reflashing or resetting a FeelTech FY6600 Signal Generator

[canyon]

My FY6600 now has a scrambled display, see attached pics. Has anyone had any luck re-flashing the program or resetting it?

Thanks,

ken

wa4mnt@gmail.com

[Ebel0410]

As far as I know there's no way to reflash the program memory in case of corrupted data.
Return it to Feeltech for repair 
On mine, the sine waveform is no more available, I must use a sine waveform I've stored in an arbitrary slot.

The FY6600 is very sensitive to these sort of issues.
Regards

[cdev]

Wasn't this version supposed to be re-flashable with firmware upgrades? Somewhere I remember reading that they had promised it would be.

[canyon]

Well, I'm all ears if you remember where you saw that.

ken

[beanflying]

From the factory early last week. Not user firmware upgradable, needs to go back 

The thread in test equipment sees a few of us hacking around the edges on improving the performance but it seems no one has yet had a crack at a micro hack - hint to the hackers out there 

[cybermaus]

Wasn't this version supposed to be re-flashable with firmware upgrades? Somewhere I remember reading that they had promised it would be.

The exact phrase was "we repair and upgrade, but FY6600 after the product we will add online upgrade function" which I think is chinglish for: "the model after the FY6600 will have upgrade function"

Anyway, you're bound to find the post, but I managed to read/write the eeprom.

[janoc]

As far as I know there's no way to reflash the program memory in case of corrupted data.
Return it to Feeltech for repair 
On mine, the sine waveform is no more available, I must use a sine waveform I've stored in an arbitrary slot.

The FY6600 is very sensitive to these sort of issues.
Regards

Any idea what is causing these problems? That looks either like a design or manufacturing issue if such faults are widespread.

I was considering this generator as an upgrade to the older model with the 2 line character LCD and only 25MHz capability, but I guess I will wait for the next model.

[jleg]

On mine, the sine waveform is no more available, I must use a sine waveform I've stored in an arbitrary slot.

unfortunately, my FY6600 now also looks like the one from the thread starter  . And it all started with not having the sine wave; some additional switch off/on sequences later, all wave forms having sine-like wave forms in the positive disappeared. And a few minutes later it was all gone, display scrambled.
Good luck for your's not going the same path...

Sending back to China for "warranty" for me is not really an option, shipping would be higher than i payed for this; but this i knew before buying.

For me it looks like some sort of "memory corruption" - the logic itself still seems to run, buttons still do 'something', relays are clicking like before...

Startup also shows some sort of humour, presenting "selfinspection completed"... 

[edit: just noticed that thread starter has exactly the same "scrambling" on startup screen like me, so it's not "random". And it's also version 3.0... ]

[canyon]

jleg,

I don't know if you noticed, but the screen with our s/n. has the exact scrambled Model:

canyon

[canyon]

Mine will be returned eventually when the seller has exhausted all efforts to get me to keep it. I am within the very short warranty period. I do want another one. Does anyone have any insight as to what is causing the failure. Would it be prudent to add extra capacitance to the power supply's three outputs, and maybe some transient suppression diodes on the outputs. I would not like to replace the whole power supply.

[jleg]

jleg,

I don't know if you noticed, but the screen with our s/n. has the exact scrambled Model:

canyon

Yes, and also note the other scrambled screens - they are identical to the last pixel! For me this more looks like a "systematical" error, and not a "random" corruption of flash or so...

[canyon]

Well, it appears this is not random transient noise corruption. When mine happened, I was going through the various menus, looking at the different waveforms. It sounds like your experience too. This corruption is fault in firmware that is triggered by a specific sequence. This is no random occurrence that is unknown to the makers. The factory to date, has offered four different schemes not to refund my money. Replacement now is not an option I want to pursue. The firmware is the problem, and without a way to reflash, seems to doom the future for it. I wish this had turned up in the many reviews I researched.

[janoc]

Well, it appears this is not random transient noise corruption. When mine happened, I was going through the various menus, looking at the different waveforms. It sounds like your experience too. This corruption is fault in firmware that is triggered by a specific sequence. This is no random occurrence that is unknown to the makers. The factory to date, has offered four different schemes not to refund my money. Replacement now is not an option I want to pursue. The firmware is the problem, and without a way to reflash, seems to doom the future for it. I wish this had turned up in the many reviews I researched.

If this corruption appears even after power-cycling the device, it would mean the MCU has managed to overwrite its own flash somehow. Not impossible but that is one mighty oops there.

[cybermaus]

and without a way to reflash, seems to doom the future for it. I wish this had turned up in the many reviews I researched.

Guys, did you not read my post. We now can read and write one of the devices two flash locations. Not sure if it is the one responsible for your problems, but you can at least try. Link1 and link2.

Do read your current flash before overwriting it.

[Bashstreet]

Actually bad lcd connection (Bad soldering joints loose ribbon etc can cause very similar errors)

If your not going to send it back might be good idea to jiggle the connections and see if it effects the image. If not well then yeah Rom error most likely.

[janoc]

Actually bad lcd connection (Bad soldering joints loose ribbon etc can cause very similar errors)

If your not going to send it back might be good idea to jiggle the connections and see if it effects the image. If not well then yeah Rom error most likely.

Generate pixel by pixel identical error on two different devices by a loose cable/solder joint? That would be one heck of a coincidence ...

[Bashstreet]

With unlimited amount of monkeys writing with unlimited amount of typewriters they would write all plays of Shakespeare.

Any case memories are subjective and if you claim to have Eidetic memory i think i need a bit more evidence than your word 

[Rasz]

can you Feel Tech quality? 

I especially like how the main FU6600 thread was started by fake Chinese account(Amysmith) with zero posts and broken English, but registered to show US profile flag.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/feeltech-fy6600-60mhz-2-ch-vco-function-arbitrary-waveform-signal-generator/
"I looking very cheap"
"I will grateful for any suggestion from all"
Seems legit.

without a way to reflash

There is a way, but Chinese are paranoid about letting go of the firmware, and not without reasons, there would be 5 clones within 2 weeks for this piece of sh..omething

btw there are services that can dump STM32F103C8 firmware for couple hundred bucks
STM32F0 has laughable "protection" https://www.aisec.fraunhofer.de/en/FirmwareProtection.html

[Bashstreet]

Yeah it seems like absolute piece of  but i could be wrong.
Maybe someone can do tear down and functionality video.
Of course it is always relative if something is a bit of a
Hobbyist like me do not have interest or money to spend in best equipment and there is no point get snobbish about gear... if someone puts down someones gear they are always free to donate better if not ....  its all

[beanflying]

Far from being a piece of poo it certainly has short comings. The feature set included for the $$ is really good but obviously there are issues.

The biggest single one is the lack of firmware support from Feeltech. Some of the other short comings are driven by the expectations of some of us users looking for a better thing while for most it wouldn't worry them.

Sitting on the sidelines hanging it on a product you haven't used or seen in the flesh is 

[Bashstreet]

Yeah long as you get out of it what you need... 

Now that said it is good to share information if something is absolute turd so people wont spend their money in it and be disappointed.
Especially people who do not have money to waste. 

[janoc]

These are fairly good generators for the price - the cheapest "brand name" generator with ARB functionality is about $500 and even basic (non-ARB) generators that can go up to 20-60MHz are not below $200.

I think nobody expects Agilent/Keysight or Rigol level of functionality and quality from a $100 device here. I have the older model with the character LCD and it works fine for what it is and if you are aware of its limitations (as with every instrument, finally). Having even the crappy ARB function is a boon for debugging of all sorts of stuff (capture a waveform using a scope and replay using the generator) and it helped me several times already. Certainly beats having to build a test fixture/simulator or hauling things out on site just to debug some stupid transient problem. However, I am not doing this often enough to justify the cost of the $500-$800 generators.

On the other hand, if the thing bricks itself because of a firmware bug, that is certainly a rather fatal problem, even for a $100 device.

[canyon]

Has anyone heard of any similar issues with the 60 MHz Ruideng JDS-6600?

Thanks....

[rhb]

Mine just borked itself.  Display is *exactly* like the start of the the thread.  Unfortunately I just finished adding a 3 wire grounded outlet and voided any warranty.  After I finished the work it sat on my bench hooked up to a scope and frequency counter for about an hour.  I shut it down and put it aside to look at the frequency counter more closely.  When I hooked it back up, it was borked.  Amazingly, it actually works but the display is screwed up making it very hard to set.

[cybermaus]

What is (was) the firmware version?