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DRV8412-C2-KIT GUI/Firmware Issues

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: CONTROLSUITE

Hello in particular to the TI engineers,

we recently purchase a DRV8412-C2-KIT from Digikey and are facing for more than 3 engineer days a whole bunch of problems:

  • First, the XDS100 drivers were not on the USB stick, we had to find out WHAT driver is required, WHY and from WHERE.
  • Then, the new serial port still didn't appear. After rebooting and opening the Windows Device Manager, we finally were able to see the new comport.
  • The stick contained drv8412guiv2.exe and drv8412guiv9.exe WITHOUT any information what to use. The brochure that came with the EZKit said to use drv8412guiv1.exe, but that version neither existed on the stick nor could be found in the net.
  • After some more timetaking research, we came upon a blog that informed us to install the CSS trial version (90 days) and to additionally install DBGJTAG GUI. We were able to install the newest CSS v5.5, but DBGJTAG GUI wouldn't accept any of the subdirectories in the installation directory. Hence we deinstalled CSS v5.5.
  • As DBGJTAG GUI suggested particular subdirections of older versions of CSS, in particular CSS v5.1, we attempted to DL the v5.1 from the T site with the effect, that the 1.2 GB transfer silently stopped downloading, although we use the IE for downloading (Firefox won't work due to some reason).
  • Furthermore, there is information missing to what switch states the 3 switches on the CC2803X board should be put when programming. Also information was missing from TI what is exactly meant with "JTAG flashing" the board - there is no dedicated JTAG port on the CC2803X. We can only suppose that the USB port might be the JTAG port - so far unconfirmed.
  • We have not seen such a mess from ANY semiconductor company yet. Almost everything seems to have gone wrong with the EZKit - missing drivers, lacking information about everything, evaulation kit not ready-to-use, wrongly programmed firmware, timetaking researches in blogs, mutually incompatible versions (DBGJTAG GUI), downloading problems, not even the actual schematics of the RevG board revision was ready to find on the stick...
  • And more than that: We exchaned almost 10 eMails with a support person from TI who was confused same as we were - at least we were able to communicate board names, as obviously writing about DRV8412EVM did not let associate that motherboard is a dedicated part of the DRV8412-C2-KIT.
  • Competitors like Analog Devices deliver their evaluation kits with a full compiler & source codes, the compiler being restricted in memory size only, but not in time. As customers may face heavy problems with kits as we did, it would have wiser to let the user have at least ONE opportunity to get the kit running!

We would be glad, if someone at TI could

  • Tell us how to get CSS v5.1 without a stuck DL
  • Tell us why DBGJTAG GUI is incompatible with the newest CSS v5.5
  • If the USB port (application port) is the same than the JTAG port (system port)
  • To what exact positions (up/down) the 3 swiches of the CC2803 board shall be put when JTAG flashing
  • From where we can get drv8412guiv1.exe, and if there is a chance to get the demo board (with the "wrong firmware") running using that EXE
  • Why the XDS100 drivers were missing on the stick
  • How it could happen nobody at TI ever tested the kit before delivery
  • Hi Ras,

    Sorry to hear about your issues. Let's see if we can sort this out. I have moved your post into a seperate thread.

    Seems like you have gotten an old version of the USB Drive and I am sorry this happened. The MCU team (F28035) supports this kit so I am unable to guess how it happened.

    The first thing I will point you to is controlSUITE. You can find the link to the left in the forum Widgets. It is a repository that contains all of the source files hardware and software for kits supported by our C2000 team.

    Once this is downloaded you can follow the path C:\ti\controlSUITE\development_kits\DRV8412-C2-KIT_v131.

    This folder will contain most everything you are looking for regarding software and hardware specific to the kit.

    In the GUI folder you will find the approriate GUIs and the ControlCard .out files associated with them.

    To specifically address your questions:

    -The latest free CCS version can be found here http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Download_CCS

    -Why are you trying to obtain DBGJTAG? This is a question for the CCS forum if you are having issues

    -Yes the JTAG is emulated over USB

    -See controlSUITE for setup guide DRV8412-C2-KIT

    -see controlSUITE for up to date firmware/software

  • The material in controlSUITE was written for CCS v4 but CCS v5 should be compatible with everything. The GUI has just changed slightly, let me know if you have any specific issues.

  • Here it is January of 2015 ... 1 5 ! and I also seem to be somewhat stuck in the same manner as the gentleman above more than a year earlier. The XDS driver doesn't install automatically on Win8 ... and the location specified in the pretty fold out doc included, on the memory stick under XDS100 Drivers - isn't there. Nothing even close. So I'm stuck not knowing WHICH version of the XDS100 this is and thus which driver is needed - .... although if I knew that I'm not sure it would do me any good... at least for the moment I've no clue where to get it!

    Nothing more frustrating than a kit intended to 'show off' a product that is poorly executed. It doesn't bode well for making a decision to go with this company and product. I'll push through - we'll see where we get to... hopefully meanwhile someone will tell me where I can get the driver.

    regards,  Gary

  • just FYI for anyone else wanting to use this kit ... the installation process for controlsuite was fast until it got to 'copying new files' at which time it was quite slow... this on a VERY fast i7/4770/12G/SSD computer ... once it finished that it showed the progress bar grayed out with all options grayed out except for the CANCEL button.... this was there for more than 20 minutes ... so I finally hit the CANCEL and it immediately said "reversing actions" and it took everything back off!!!!!!

    So today I tried it again - this time I didn't hit CANCEL but left it alone and it took a long time but finally finished.

    Now I'm trying to once again install the driver for the XDS100, the one that was suppose to be on the supplied memory stick but isn't (or at least not where they said it should be nor anywhere else that I can find)... sure enough with ControlSuite installed there is a folder for XDS100 drivers! BUT THEY DON'T WORK! STILL no drivers for the XDS100 and still no progress with this kit.

  • Gary, I couldn't agree with you more. I also ran into the XDS100 driver issue when using this kit. I've contacted the appropriate TI folks to fix this and hopefully we'll get it cleaned up soon!

    If you connect your PC to the board (specifically, USB that goes to the control card that's plugged into the main board), open up Device Manager. If it shows an unknown device or a yellow question mark, that probably indicates that an appropriate driver isn't being used. Double-click it, select Update Driver, and browse to the directory:

    C:\ti\controlSUITE\development_kits\~Utilities\XDS100 Drivers v1.0\

    It should install and work after that; you might need to reboot Windows. I really don't know if Win8 behaves differently, but if you can't get it working, maybe try to get ahold of an XP/Vista/7 machine.

    Best regards,
    RE

  • Thanks - I eventually got it to work. Part of the problem was when downloading CCS6 (not KNOWING which version I REALLY needed since the manual says 4)... I had the first aborted attempt - then finally I got the whole thing to install and once that took place I was able to find the driver... all this is, this XDS100, is a simple FTDI USB/serial chip! A $5 chip.

    I'm now running CCS6 with the kit code and trying to get use to debugging.

    Gary Myers