Notice about the DFU for HW2.81

[hugh.evans]

@xuguang.shao

I get to post here to notice the guys who own Quad 2.81 that be careful with the DFU, don’t flash and overwrite the DFU, because there’s no repairing DFU for now.

The DFU for HW2.81 is diff from the older versions. You can’t use a previous version to drive HW2.81. So flashing a older one will make your unit a brick although it’s maybe already a brick before flashing It’s not the time to release the DFU for HW2.81 because the license activation has changed with this version’s DFU. You can’t input the license code to activate the unit like before. But the designer is working on creating an application to do the activation. So we will release the activation application together with the DFU for HW2.81 weeks later. Please be patient to wait a while for the one get a brick on hand.

At last, please be very careful with your DFU, don’t kill it contemptuously

It has been over six months since this post assured us of the release of the DFU for v2.81 with a corresponding activation app. I have been extremely satisfied with my DSO Quad since I purchased it in February of 2015 until the DFU suffered a sudden failure following a routine dump of frequency/phase response test data.

Customer service offered no assistance:

Thanks for your email.
Please kindly contact the distributor where you purchased the item for the replacement.
As our policy, the distributor take all the responsibility to the customers.
Thanks!

Gloria

As it turned out, the distributor (MicroCenter in Columbus, OH) only carried the product as a test item for a brief time ~1 to 2 months. Given their 30 day return policy, the most I could get after some arm twisting would be a gift card… which would do nothing to aid my situation. Worse yet, I consult an industry for which the DSO Quad is a perfect application for in-line test quality control using custom software I wrote for the purpose. If these devices have the potential to fail so randomly, I fear the imminent upset customer calls and have already started preparing for this eventuality (going so far as to build custom USB-Serial cables complete with USB thumb drive containing the original hex file for emergency restoration.) This isn’t something end users should be stuck dealing with. If Seeed is so committed to the maker movement as well as open source HW/SW: all relevant source and compiled code should be released as units start to ship. I’m probably not the only person who believes the DFU should be protected, especially given that for each HW revision it is extremely unlikely that a new DFU will ever be necessary.

The bottom line is this: Do you have the new version ready or not? If so: Please post all relevant files to the wiki. Since you can load the DFU during production, I suspect all of the necessary SW exists and has proven that it works. Therefore, everyone who is currently stuck with a $170 brick deserves access (and better support than passing the buck to retailers who don’t particularly care once the terms of their return/exchange policy have been reached.

I look forward to your swift response and solution to rectify this situation.

Best Regards