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A Scalextric Trouble

2K views 11 replies 4 participants last post by  Dr_C 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Good evening everyone. I will try to be more berve and concise pssibile. A long time ago I purchased the scalextric ARC PRO powerbase. After a few months I decided to go digital. I purchased everything from slot.it and updated the powerbase ... incorrectly. Having said that I have been wandering for months on the internet looking for a solution but nothing to do. the problem is the following: I understood that from the slot.it website I inadvertently installed the wrong firmware in the powerbase, having said that now the ARC Pro control unit comes in with a short-circuit red LED and the Rnf ToolBox app does not detect the bluetooth signal in order to carry out the downgrade. I have already contacted slot.it via facebook and they have been very kind to me but I could not find a solution together with them and they directly advised me to ask on this forum I hope you can help me

Good evening everyone. I will try to be more berve and concise pssibile. A long time ago I purchased the scalextric ARC PRO powerbase. After a few months I decided to go digital. I purchased everything from slot.it and updated the powerbase ... incorrectly. Having said that I have been wandering for months on the internet looking for a solution but nothing to do. the problem is the following: I understood that from the slot.it website I inadvertently installed the wrong firmware in the powerbase, having said that now the ARC Pro control unit comes in with a short-circuit red LED and the Rnf ToolBox app does not detect the bluetooth signal in order to carry out the downgrade. I have already contacted slot.it via facebook and they have been very kind to me but I could not find a solution together with them and they directly advised me to ask on this forum I hope you can help me
 
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#2 ·
Could you please clarify which microcontroller on the ARC PRO did you reflash? the PIC18 or the main nRF microcontroller? I am guessing the latter? Also, what firmware did you flash into it? Did you carry out the reflashing using nRF tools?

C
 
#4 ·
Dr_C: Ti ho allegato la foto del sito internet da quale ho prelavato il firmware, ho involontariamente installato quello dei controller perché avevo capito che la centralina dovesse essere aggiornata e non i controller. Su un forum di Scalextric ho trovato un signore americano con il mio stesso identico problema e la conversazione nel forum va a perdersi senza che si riesca a leggere una soluzione.

dvd3500: Ho gia contattato il servizio assistenza, ma con scarsissimi risultati dato che non ho mai ricevuto risposta. I ragazzi di Slot.it hanno anche contattato qualche CEO di scalextric ma nemmeno da loro ho ricevuto una risposta così ho seguito il primo consiglio che e quello di chiedere direttamente su questo forum
 

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#6 ·
I used google translate... auto translation made perfect sense!

So my next question... sounds like you are unable to set the nRF device into bluetooth DFU mode... so nRF tools is unable to detect the nRF device. Is that correct?

C
 
#7 · (Edited by Moderator)
I would welcome views from others... what I think is happening here...

Normally the nRF microcontroller firmware in the ARC PRO is set to operate the device in BLE (Bluetooth low energy) mode. In this mode it can be set into DFU (device firmware update) mode using a BLE packet. If needing to reflash the firmware, nRF tools app takes care of this for us automatically so reflashing becomes straight forward. This is called buttonless DFU.

The nRF microcontroller firmware in the ARC throttle controllers is set to operate the device in ESB (enhanced shockburst) mode. In this mode it is necessary to use a button sequence (the equivalent of pressing button 4 (GPIO.20) with the development kit) to switch the device into DFU mode. This is all part of the procedure for DFU upgrading of firmware in ARC throttle controllers.

So here, if I understand you correctly, you have an ARC PRO which thinks it is a throttle controller... but there is no button to press to set it into DFU mode. I suspect an internal connection would need to be made to get the nRF device into the required DFU mode. This is not for the faint hearted... and I myself have never tried this!

With the above information in mind... I think DVD3500s advice is best... suggest you give Hornby customer services a call and hope they can take it back and reflash via DFU.

C
 
#11 ·
I'm trying to have Davide's PB shipped to our office, but no promises of success Davide.

I had hopes that one of the 6 lanes push buttons would be mapped to the same I/O pin that we use to start DFU in the controller but this seems not to be the case.

Thank you all for the help.
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hi Maurizio, not sure if you are familar with the final architecture of the ARC PRO... it has two nRF51822, one for the wireless throttles and a second one for BLE... the latter is on s pcb sub-module with all main pins broken-out. If we know which pin the Slot.it throttle firmware uses to set DFU mode...it should be easy to identify on the module pin-out.

C
 
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