An explanation of "without firmware issues" for Preorder-2

[seeed]

Hi Guys:

This is Eric form Seeed Studio, thank you for your patience for Pre-order 2 which took far too long time waiting for the IC in shortage.

I got quite a few mails about people who can't get it working throught hyper terminal, the reason is because no firmware loaded before shipping.

The testing is done in factory due to its large qty, so it should be simplest way with least steps. We found difficulty in testing by original steps: program bootloader - upload firmware - test
But simplified in field: program firmware - test - program bootloader

We will just program bundled version in V3, you will have a default firmware to use.

If you mistakenly broke the bootloader (e,g. No jumper on PGC and PGD while uploading firmware and choose continue), or met any other issue can't resolve, please send back to us for free fixing.

Thanks!

[ian]

The good new is you get the absolute latest bootloader, but you have to bootload the firmware file yourself. Here's the latest firmware download.

Since there's no existing firmware on the PIC, it enters the bootloader automatically. You shouldn't need a jumper between the PGC and PGD pins to trigger the bootloader. You can tell the v2 bootloader is active if the MODE LED lights imediatly after power-on.

After programming for the first time you'll need to use a jumper to enter the bootloader for future firmware upgrades.

Happy Bus Pirating!