开云体育

Folks,
I use my LG gpad for quite a lot of my activities so I started to search for an Android app that could flash and read the Nanovna firmware using the USB OTG function.

I found 'STM32 Utils' and 'Zflasher' on the Play Store but they were older apps and limited in functionality.

On GitHub, I found an old project from 2015 but although it claimed to flash dfu files, I could not get that to work although it was able to erase the flash while in dfu mode.


Yesterday, I went back to the Play Store and there were two new apps there from the same author. One is completely free but uses the STlink interface to flash and read hex files (I verified it works well).

The other will flash dfu files, is easy to use but has a limit of 25 flash operations before you need to spend to get either 100 more flash operations or unlimited access. This utility works very well except for the cost after the first 25 flashes, so you might want to pick up an STlink interface and use the totally free app.

Please note: I have no relation with the author of these 2 new apps but I do know there are a number of Android tablet and device owners in the forum that can make good use of either app.

I will be making a dedicated cable for my STlink that uses a 4-circuit stereo jack as you only need 3v, gnd, clk and Dio to flash with the STlink. That way I don't need to lug around a laptop...I can use my tablet or phone with my Nanovna devices.

... Larry

Oh, I forgot to include the link...

The author also has an Android utility to flash over Bluetooth for those that have added the BT serial module to their Nanovna.?
Again: the STlink version has unlimited flashing ability (and allows setting of the option bits in flash) but the dfu versions give you only 25 free flashes.

Regards
Larry

On Mon, 28 Sep 2020 at 8:38 PM, Larry Rothman<nlroth@...> wrote: Folks,
I use my LG gpad for quite a lot of my activities so I started to search for an Android app that could flash and read the Nanovna firmware using the USB OTG function.

I found 'STM32 Utils' and 'Zflasher' on the Play Store but they were older apps and limited in functionality.

On GitHub, I found an old project from 2015 but although it claimed to flash dfu files, I could not get that to work although it was able to erase the flash while in dfu mode.?


Yesterday, I went back to the Play Store and there were two new apps there from the same author. One is completely free but uses the STlink interface to flash and read hex files (I verified it works well).

The other will flash dfu files, is easy to use but has a limit of 25 flash operations before you need to spend to get either 100 more flash operations or unlimited access. This utility works very well except for the cost after the first 25 flashes, so you might want to pick up an STlink interface and use the totally free app.

Please note: I have no relation with the author of these 2 new apps but I do know there are a number of Android tablet and device owners in the forum that can make good use of either app.

I will be making a dedicated cable for my STlink that uses a 4-circuit stereo jack as you only need 3v, gnd, clk and Dio to flash with the STlink. That way I don't need to lug around a laptop...I can use my tablet or phone with my Nanovna devices.

... Larry

Thanks for the link - worked perfectly! I just put the following together as I managed to get it all up and running on a Fire Tablet, rather than a standard Android tablet.

Using NanoVNA with Amazon Fire Tablet 7 (9th generation) running OS 7.3.1.5

You need to be able to install Google Playstore. There are plenty of websites telling you how to do it, such as:

Load Chrome browser onto tablet.
Instructions here () but ensure you put this in Chrome chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-web-platform-features and Enable the flag for experimental procedures.
Then type this into Chrome and bookmark it:

Use an OTG connector (this is the one I have: ) and the long USB-to-C cable to connect to the NanoVNA. Swoitch on the NanoVNA and you should be able to connect and see the screen update on the tablet.

The other thing you can do from your Fire Tablet is update the NanoVNA firmware. I used the STMDfuUsb software from

Download the latest firmware onto your tablet and unzip it (B1 Free Archiver works well, free Amazon App). Run the STMDfuUsb software and connect to NanoVNA via your OTG lead. Put the NanoVNA into DFU mode through the menu (or via hardware) and it should connect. Select ‘Load file to flash’ and find your ‘ch.hex’ file, select it and flash it. The programmer then tells you how many times you can use it again. It starts at 25, so that means I can flash another 24 versions of firmware which seems pretty good to me.

I’m by no means technically competent with linux/DFU, etc, and so I’m pretty pleased I managed to do the above and it works.

Hope this helps others link their NanoVNAs with these cheap little Amazon tablets.

Regards,

Mike
MM0GUX