[Elecraft] K3 FPF Load failed

[Dick Dievendorff]

The quick route is to retry the firmware load.  If it fails "hard", you most
probably have a communications cabling problem.  In all my testing of the K3
Utility (and I've tried really hard to duplicate "nightmare" scenarios) I've
never been in a situation where a complete firmware reload wouldn't solve
the problem.  Sometimes I have been testing a marginal USB to Serial Adapter
that just didn't work out, but replacing the cable with a good one has
always been enough.

The K3 MCU "bootstrap" code is protected from mischief and power failures at
inconvenient times.  Any individual load might fail, but retrying it should
cure the problem.

Dick, K6KR



-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Deni F5VJC
Sent: Saturday, August 02, 2008 2:47 PM
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 FPF Load failed


Yes scary indeed!

I have never yet had a download fail, Beta or otherwise, but, I always hold
my breath until I have a working K3 again!

I dread the day this does fail and I have a dumb black box on my hands.

Is there a quick route out of of this nightmare scenario?

I have seen written " Dont Panic" but what exactly is the recommended
procedure when a new download screws your superbly honed K3?

73, Deni
F5VJC





Julian, G4ILO wrote:
> 
> It has been about 3 weeks since I last switched on my K3 and when I did so
> just now, VFO A said "FPF Load" and VFO B said "Pending". It was working
> OK when I last switched it off.
> 
> I decided that the best thing to do would be to load the latest beta
> firmware, which was what I was going to do anyway, but the K3 Utility
> reported:
> 
> Sending firmware file hfpf0002.hex to FPF
> 21:40:28 Send FPF firmware failed at load address x7b1f
> 21:40:28 FPF program load failed
> 21:40:28 Ready
> 
> The receiver appears to be working and I can tune the VFO, although I have
> no idea where I am as the VFO display just reads FPF Load / Pending.
> 
> While typing this I managed to clear the problem by pressing Band Down
> until I got to the lower bands, when I saw that frequencies were appearing
> again. When I press Band Up frequencies are now appearing, but when I move
> up to 21MHz or any higher band VFO B briefly displays ERR PL1 before
> showing the frequency.
> 
> Having got to this point, I tried to upload the firmware again and this
> time it appears to have been successful. So what went wrong? The previous
> firmware was, I think, 2.13 beta. All seems OK now but it was a scary
> moment that I could have done without.
> 

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