What firmware for the IO board Thetis for HL2 works with?

[Lukasz Olszewski]

So having problems with pihpsdr's puresignal I decided to boot into windows to try the same in Thetis. However it seems the stock IO board must have had some Pi firmware loaded tgat made Thetis happy. As after I installed my own now Thetis is variously:

- flashing rx ant 1 and tx ant 1 on the bottom going back to receive

- if io board is set to off in config it continues giving me IO error 255 messages.

So some software must have been loaded that worked with it and now it doesn't . 

I te-read all the docs but I can't find a mention of it.

If anyone knows what to load back onto the pi let me know please .

73, Łukasz 

[Lukasz Olszewski]

I can (partially) reply to myself as I found some more info, in hope it will help someone down the line.

Basically software like Thetis expects to be able to talk to HL2 IO board via i2c. If it can't it will flip (despite setting the no IO board in setup.

So one has to include this i2c functionality in the firmware. There are some ready made firmware routines in the github repo, hut they are all in C. So anyone who prefers python is out of luck.

Anyway, I created a new version of n2adr_basic folder. I removed all the stuff I don't need from the main function (icon ah 4, voltage/band decode etc). I added a line to set REG_RF_INPUTS to zero (can be changed via i2c later).

Also I modified the IrqRxTxChange function in the n2adr_lib/i2x_slave_handler.c file to drive Out 1 high on TX. That's my only change.

Hopefully it will restore Thetis functionality.

73, Łukasz 

[Lukasz Olszewski]

Sadly putting on the n2adr_basic firmware modified to drive out1 high on tx changed nothing.

Still pressing 2ton button results in 0W out. As if Thetis was not activating the HL2 PA and T/R relay when 2ton was pressed.

Both TUN and just pressing MOX works fine. 

If anyone managed to get 2 tone output out of Thetis please let me know how.

73, Łukasz 

[Lukasz Olszewski]

My stupid mistake...LSB has to be set In Thetis for 2ton to work. :-D

[Gary Abercrombie]

Lukasz,

Actually Thetis and piHpsdr communicate with the Hermes firmware via CC packets in Protocol 1.  Within those packets, the information for setting GPIO's, gain blocks, VFO frequencies, is provided.

The Hermes firmware running in HL2, Red Pitaya, TRX-DUO examines the CC frame bits and has different ways via I2C and GPIO's to set external pins and controls.

One problem I saw is that some of the settings are only issued via i2c if a change is made and sometimes settings are uninitialized.  When I used an Arduino as a band decoder / monitor I discovered this.  Another issue is if any of the i2c devices fails to establish communication when Hermes firmware starts, this I2C device is not used and that function is in effect disabled until a reset of Hermes is performed.

Attached is my Hermes Arduino software in case others would like to use it.  I used a 2.42" OLED 1309 for the display.

Gary, N8CQ

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From: herme...@googlegroups.com <herme...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Lukasz Olszewski <em...@lukaszolszewski.info>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2025 2:43 AM
To: Hermes-Lite <herme...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: What firmware for the IO board Thetis for HL2 works with?

 

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