Upgrading QHY 174 GPS Camera Firmware

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Upgrading QHY 174 GPS Camera Firmware

#1

Post by admin »

Hi

The good news is that I have received permission to share the documentation relating to the firmware update. This documentation is made available thanks to the occultation team at SWRI who used these cameras to observer the occultations by Arrakoth/Ultima Thule for the New Horizons mission.

As far as I'm aware there is no downgrade route available (or at least there isn't one without having copies of the original firmwares, which I do not have. Whether these can be extracted from the camera before upgrading, I have no idea).

My contact at SWRI noted that he had a success rate of 28/30 cameras upgrading correctly using the steps. Two cameras had to be returned to QHY for service (QHY managed to complete the upgrade on these cameras). As such, I really have to point out that any attempt to upgrade is entirely at your own risk.

From my point of view, the main difference in this update is that the cameras produce an additional GPS data block at the start of the frame that contains the raw NMEA sentences received from the GPS. SharpCap will parse additional info from this block and save it in in unparsed form in the log.I think there may have been support added for GPS functionality in 16 bit mode. I have no idea if there have been other bug fixes/tweaks.

Hope this helps, Robin

Notes on Upgrading QHY174 Firmware.pdf
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QHY174Firmware.zip
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procyon12
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Re: All GPS Status codes and their exact meaning

#2

Post by procyon12 »

Hi Robin,

Many thanks !

If I have the courage to try it, I will report here.

Cheers
Christian
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Re: All GPS Status codes and their exact meaning

#3

Post by procyon12 »

Hi,

It's done ;) , many thanks to Robin and to the SWRI.

The GPS status window (as well as the GPS-log) show now something more (so far I don't know anything about possible further changes):
ClpBrd2.png
ClpBrd2.png (25.7 KiB) Viewed 3640 times

and in FITS header we have the altitude:

...
GPS_DSYS= -0.0016721 / System clock - GPS clock offset (s)
GPS_DSTB= 19 / Time offset stable for (s)
GPS_ALT = '44.3M ' / Altitude
GAIN = 49 /
GPS_NU = 938103.5 / NowShutterMicroSeconds
...


The actual upgrade process was fairly straightforward following the instructions. However, there were some mechanical / electrical challenges. Mostly, because internal connections are sealed with glue. So I couldn't completely remove the housing and the space for connecting the USB blaster and the USB port of the camera was very small. For the upgrade the camera must by powered by USB - not by the 12 V. There is some risk of short circuit and ESD. Generally spoken, it is a bit tricky, you will need some experience in electronics and skill. The internal processing of the camera made a good impression.


You'll need the delivered USB blaster


DSC07289_51.png
DSC07289_51.png (662.81 KiB) Viewed 3640 times
and this software - 370 Mb (it's free but you have to create an INTEL account):

https://fpgasoftware.intel.com/?edition=lite > Stand-Alone Software Quartus Prime Programmer and Tools

I used the latest version under W7-64. I didn't find a way to extract the original firmware. A sample screenshot:

Clipboard07.png
Clipboard07.png (85.06 KiB) Viewed 3640 times

Finally a picture showing the upgrade of the GPS PCB:

DSC07736_3.jpg
DSC07736_3.jpg (248.97 KiB) Viewed 3640 times

@ Robin: The GPS-log file is now growing very quickly, 10min to 3Mb. Maybe there is a way to reduce the size by (optional) removing something some raw data? I attach an abbreviated example.

Christian
Attachments
GPSLog_2020-06-17T18_50_24-5396.log
(1.32 KiB) Downloaded 116 times
Kai Getrost
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Re: All GPS Status codes and their exact meaning

#4

Post by Kai Getrost »

Nice! Thanks for the update.

-Kai
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Re: All GPS Status codes and their exact meaning

#5

Post by admin »

Hi Christian,

thanks for the report - glad to hear that it went well.

I will think about the GPS log - perhaps if I can get all the additional info into ADV or FITS output then it becomes redundant?

cheers,

Robin
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Re: Upgrading QHY 174 GPS Camera Firmware

#6

Post by admin »

Hi,

just thought I would report that I too have been successful in updating my 174GPS using the steps documented above. It took about an hour and was more fiddly than difficult.

Robin
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Re: Upgrading QHY 174 GPS Camera Firmware

#7

Post by procyon12 »

Congrats, Robin :-)
more fiddly than difficult
I agree.

Christian
SteveInNZ
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Re: Upgrading QHY 174 GPS Camera Firmware

#8

Post by SteveInNZ »

Could someone meter the connections between the 0.1" Blaster header and the 0.05" header that plugs into the QHY boards please ?
I'll have to make something up and would rather not make any assumptions and find out the hard way that I guessed incorrectly.
No answer from QHY.
Of course, if someone wants to part with their adapter, that would be even better.

Steve.
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Re: Upgrading QHY 174 GPS Camera Firmware

#9

Post by procyon12 »

Hi Steve,

I hope this helps:
ClpBrd22.png
ClpBrd22.png (584.41 KiB) Viewed 3129 times
Christian
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Re: Upgrading QHY 174 GPS Camera Firmware

#10

Post by admin »

Hi Steve,

did you mean the electrical connections too?

cheers,

Robin
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