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

Overview

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

Requirements

Hardware

  • 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 Host PC

Software

Download the needed software here:

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:

  1. Connect USB Recovery Cable (CV-1361) to the CN7 connector on SBC-3.5-PX30, and the Host PC on the other end.

  2. 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=
  3. Open in the terminal your preferred serial port communication tool (e.g. minicom or gtkterm).

  4. Flash the loader on the SBC-3.5-PX30 device via the following command:

    $ sudo ./upgrade_tool UL px30_loader_v1.11.115.bin
  5. 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):

  6. Now is it possibile 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:

  1. Connect the host machine USB port type-A with Debug UART connector (CN 27) on the board over USB-to-TTL Serial cable.

  2. Open in the terminal your preferred serial port communication program (minicom or gtkterm, for example) and configure the serial port

  3. Power on the board and stop boot process within boot delay (5 seconds), using combination of the keys Ctrl+C.

  4. in U-Boot shell write command:

    This command will erase u-boot from eMMC. The board will enter into Rockusb mode on the next power on.

  5. Connect USB Recovery Cable (CV-1361) to the CN7 connector on SBC-3.5-PX30, and the Host PC on the other end.

  6. Power on the board and repeat the instructions in the previous section to flash the bootloader and image.