Blog from February, 2024

How to Create a Recovery USB for SBC-3.5-PX30 (D23)

Andrea Da Col posted on Feb 02, 2024

Overview

This page contains the instructions to create a Recovery USB device for the SBC-3.5-PX30 (D23) SECO board.

Requirements

Hardware

USB drive with at least 8GB available.

Software

The two image files .wic and .wic.bmap

seco-usb-flash-image-seco-px30-d23.wic
seco-usb-flash-image-seco-px30-d23.wic.bmap

bmaptool installed in an host PC.

Creation of USB recovery device

Insert the USB drive in the host PC and use bmaptool command to create bootable USB device:

$ sudo bmaptool copy seco-usb-flash-image-seco-px30-d23.wic /dev/<your-device>

In the USB device's image partition you can find the /INSTALL/ folder. Inside this folder you shall copy the image files you want to install on the board. The files needed in this step are <image_name>.wic.gz and <image_name>.wic.bmap. For example:

seco-image-edgehog-seco-px30-d23.wic.gz
seco-image-edgehog-seco-px30-d23.wic.bmap

Installation phase

To install the new version on the board the steps are described as follow:

Plug the Recovery USB device in a powered off board.
Power on the board stopping in bootlader (CTRL+C command)
In U-Boot run the following command in order to ensure that the USB device could be correctly read:

 > setenv bootusb true; setenv usb_pgood_delay 3000; saveenv; command

Run the command:

> boot

Check if Booting from USB ... log appears in boot logs.

Once the system has booted the copying procedure starts itself. It could be possible to check the progress running the command:

$ journalctl -u seco-install -f

Once the procedure end succesfully, you can restart the board without the Recovery USB to boot with the updated software.

How to flash the SBC-3.5-PX30 (D23) eMMC/SDD

Luca Pisani posted on Feb 02, 2024

Overview

This page contains the instructions to flash the eMMC/SSD on a SBC-3.5-PX30 (D23) SECO board.

Hardware Requirements

USB Recovery Cable (CV-1361) - Custom cable that connect the CN7 connector (USB Recovery) of the SBC-3.5-PX30 and end with a male USB type-A plug.
Linux or Windows Host PC.

Linux

Software Requirements

Download the necessary software from the following links:

Rockchip Upgrade_tool - this guide uses the official Rockchip Upgrade_tool package. Here you can find more info about Rockchip flashing tools, while in this github page you can find more useful info about the Upgrade_tool usage from a third party contributor.
Rockchip PX30 loader - official Rockchip loader for PX30.
The OS image file (in .wic format) provided in the SBC-3.5-PX30 (D23) product page.

Instructions for an empty device

These are the instructions to be followed in case the device that needs to be flashed does not either have a bootloader:

Connect USB Recovery Cable (CV-1361) to the CN7 connector on SBC-3.5-PX30, and the Host PC on the other end.
Power-On the board and check that the device is detected via lsusb command. Something like this should appear, with a reference to “Rockchip”:
```
$ lsusb | grep Rockchip
Bus 003 Device 011: ID 2207:330d Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Company
```
In alternative, you can use the upgrade_tool command to list the compatible devices:
```
$ sudo ./upgrade_tool ld
List of rockusb connected(1)
DevNo=1 Vid=0x2207,Pid=0x330c,LocationID=7143 Mode=Maskrom SerialNo=
```
Open in the terminal your preferred serial port communication tool (e.g. minicom or gtkterm).
Flash the loader on the SBC-3.5-PX30 device via the following command:
```
$ sudo ./upgrade_tool UL px30_loader_v1.11.115.bin
```
Flash the .wic image in the board via the following command. Remember to substitute the <image-file>.wic with the file name of the image (e.g seco_px30_d23_edgehog-embedded-full-image-wayland_5-10-x_kirkstone_1-02-00_20240202.wic):
```
$ sudo ./upgrade_tool WL 0 <image-file>.wic
```
Now is it possible to restart the board running the new image.

Instructions for a device already flashed

These are the instruction to be followed in case the device that needs to be flashed has already a bootloader installed:

Connect the host machine USB port type-A with Debug UART connector (CN27) on the board over USB-to-TTL Serial cable.
Open in the terminal your preferred serial port communication program (e.g. minicom or gtkterm) and configure the serial port as per the parameters below:
```
port:         dev/ttyUSB0
baud rate:    115200
data bits:    8
stop bit:     1
parity:       none
flow control: none
```
Power on the board and stop boot process within boot delay (5 seconds), using combination of the keys Ctrl+C.
in U-Boot shell write command:
```
> mmc erase 0x4000 0x2000
```
This command will erase U-Boot from eMMC. The board will enter into Rockusb mode on the next power on.
Repeat the instructions in the previous section to flash the bootloader and image.

Windows

The instructions below are based on the Rockchip guide available at this link, so please consult it for further details on how to flash PX30 CPU-based boards in a Windows environment.

Software Requirements

Download the necessary software from the following links:

Rockchip Driver Assistant - Rockchip tool that helps install the driver on your Windows PC.
RKDevTool - Rockchip flashing tool for Windows.
Rockchip PX30 loader - official Rockchip loader for PX30.
The OS image file (in .wic format) provided in the SBC-3.5-PX30 (D23) product page.

Driver Installation

First, use the Rockchip driver assistant tool to install the driver. There’s no need to connect your Rockchip device during this procedure just download and extract RKDriverAssistant.zip.
Then double click on DriverInstall.exe in the RKDriverAssistant directory to start the utility. If you installed the Rockchip USB drivers for any other Rockchip devices already, make sure you click “Uninstall Driver” first.

Change language

Once the drivers are installed, RKDevTool_Release_v2.81 tool can be unpacked. However, before running the tool, the config file must be modified by changing the Selected field under the [Language] section to 2 (otherwise, the default language is Chinese).

Instructions for an empty device

These are the instructions to be followed in case the device that needs to be flashed does not either have a bootloader:

Connect USB Recovery Cable (CV-1361) to the CN7 connector on SBC-3.5-PX30, and the Host PC on the other end.
Power-On the board and check that the device is detected.
Open in the terminal your preferred serial port communication tool (e.g. teraterm).
Run RKDevTool and load the file px30_loader_v1.11.115.bin into the Loader field and <image-file>.wic into the Image field (see image below).

Press Run and wait for the flashing procedure to finish.
Now is it possible to restart the board running the new image.

Instructions for a device already flashed

These are the instruction to be followed in case the device that needs to be flashed has already a bootloader installed:

Connect the host machine USB port type-A with Debug UART connector (CN27) on the board over USB-to-TTL Serial cable.
Open in the terminal your preferred serial port communication program (e.g. minicom).
Power on the board and stop boot process within boot delay (5 seconds), using combination of the keys Ctrl+C.
in U-Boot shell write command:
```
> mmc erase 0x4000 0x2000
```
This command will erase U-Boot from eMMC. The board will enter into Rockusb mode on the next power on.
Repeat the instructions in the previous section to flash the bootloader and image.

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