Zum Radio MMDVM for Pi Rev 1.0

Help with other MMDVM Repeater Boards (with NO onboard RF)
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AB0LV
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Zum Radio MMDVM for Pi Rev 1.0

Post by AB0LV »

I have a Zum Radio MMDVM for Pi board Rev 1.0. DMR was working but the Nextion display wouldn't connect.

After loading screens and trying to reverse the TX/RX connection to the display I decided to try updating the firmware on the Zum Radio board.

I followed the steps I found on a post here and on Github. The firmware loads. The board LEDs flash, sequence up and down then the stat led starts flashing. The Pi-Star log shows Unable to read firmware version after six attempts.

I was hoping somebody might have an idea of what I'm missing.
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Re: Zum Radio MMDVM for Pi Rev 1.0

Post by M1DNS »

Usually that results from updating the board with the incorrect firmware.

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VK7HSE
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Re: Zum Radio MMDVM for Pi Rev 1.0

Post by VK7HSE »

Did you update your firmware from...

https://github.com/g4klx/MMDVM

Or from another source? Also what are your settings for the Nextion, should use modem if connected directly to the board.

Oh and check the Config.h (in the mmdvm source code łto ensure that the serial pass through is enabled otherwise all of the above is never going to work!

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AB0LV
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Re: Zum Radio MMDVM for Pi Rev 1.0

Post by AB0LV »

I was finally able to update the firmware. Following the process found at this link with a change at the end.

https://github.com/juribeparada/MMDVM_m ... M-Pi_en.md

I was using a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with the latest version of Pi-Star installed.

No matter what I tried I could not get the firmware to load successfully using a Pi-Star image.

I reloaded the Pi-Star image numerous time. The above process and others I found would not successfully load the firmware. I could load the firmware but Pi-Star would never find the modem.

To get it to work, I loaded a fresh install of Raspbian and updated it. Following the process in the document at that link then worked with this change I found on the MMDVM Facebook page:

"The new MMDVM-Pi zum radio v1.0 has a F722 chip, and requires a FW load change to the CA6JAU procedure;

replace with below where relevant ;

sudo make pi-f722

sudo make deploy-pi-f7"
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Re: Zum Radio MMDVM for Pi Rev 1.0

Post by VK7HSE »

Ahh... the MCU was the issue! Yes the version of stm32flash that's provided with pi-star does not have support for the STM32F7xx chip! The version 0.9 has the STM32F4xx chip and that will update just fine (with some additional packages installed) Anyway glad you got it all sorted...

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AB0LV
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Re: Zum Radio MMDVM for Pi Rev 1.0

Post by AB0LV »

When I followed those instructions it has steps to uninstall stm32flash and install the latest version.

I did that and I can use the command line stm32flash /dev/ttyAMA0 to read the information about the stm32 on the zum board after I install the version 0.5.

I'm sort of curious so after I got your email I wanted to see if the stm32flash was the issue. I copied the mmdvm_f7.bin file to the Pi-Star image and used sudo stm32flash -v -w mmdvm_f7.bin -g 0x0 -R -c /dev/ttyAMA0 to write the file to the Zum Radio board and that worked fine.

On the Pi-Star image the instructions fail at make pi-f722. It doesn't seem to be able to build all the necessary objects. After it finishes the bin directory is empty.

This dive into DMR has been a real learning experience and I don't think it's over.

I also found that Pi-Star won't boot on Element14 Raspberry Pi 3 B+ boards I have that report an ARMv7 processor. The red led just flashes. Raspbian boots fine and I have it running APRX digipeaters on two Element14 boards.

I have an older Raspberry Pi 3 B+ board with an ARMv6 processor and a Pi Zero W with an ARMv6 that both boot Pi-Star without a problem. I've also run Raspbian and APRX on the ARMv6 Pi 3 B+ so that all leaves me confused.

***Update***

I found another post on this forum that talked about Pi-Star not booting on Pi 3 B+ boards and the answer was install the 4.0.0-RC3. Now Pi-Star boots on all my boards. RC3 also has stm32flash version 0.5 but I haven't tried compiling the MMDVM firwmare yet.
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