Firmware Uploader

This manual for Beginner. Makes it easier for you to get started with the robot(Nybble / Bittle ).

** Download the latest version of the Petoi Desktop APP. **

  • After downloading the compressed file(.zip), please unzip it first.

  • Do NOT move the UI.exe to another location in Windows.

Petoi Desktop App works on both Nybble and Bittle controlled by NyBoard based on ATmega328P or Bittle X controlled by BiBoard based on ESP32.

For NyBoard, more detailed documentation can be found at NyBoard V1_0, NyBoard V1_1, or NyBoard V1_2 (which is similar to NyBoard V1_1).

Connect the mainboard to the computer

You can connect the computer to the mainboard using a USB cable, following the instructions on the subsequent sub-pages, which are specific to the robot's mainboard model. To see the sub-pages as in the following picture:

Upload the firmware using the Petoi Desktop app

Open the PetoiDesktopApp

After properly connecting the USB uploader, open the PetoiDesktopApp (for Windows: UI.exe / for Mac: Petoi Desktop App), and select your Model and Language.

Menu bar in Petoi Desktop APP

Model
Language
Help

Click the Firmware Uploader button

Main interface

Auto Detect the Serial Port

If there is no serial port or more than one serial port are detected by the desktop app:

After clicking the Firmware Uploader button, there will be a message box prompt as follows:

Please follow the prompts in the message box. After clicking the Confirm button, If you complete the prompts within 10 seconds, the desktop app will automatically identify the serial port name connecting the robot to the computer. If you complete the operation of unplugging and plugging the USB interface on the computer for more than 10 seconds, the desktop application will enter the manual selection of the serial port name mode：

Click the OK button in the Warning message box first, then you can refresh the serial port list or select one of them (e.g. COM3) and click the OK button in the Manual mode window to open the Firmware Uploader interface as follows:

Firmware Uploader interface

Once the Firmware Uploader interface is opened, you can also unplug and replug the USB cable from the COMPUTER side. The desktop app will automatically identify the serial port name connecting the robot to the computer.

If unplug the COM5 and replug it on the computer side, it will be discovered by the desktop app as follows:

Select the correct options to upload the latest firmware.

The 1.0 software won't work properly with the Joint Calibrator, the Skill Composer, and other APIs. Only use it when you want to use CodeCraft (a graphical coding interface by our partner, TinkerGen).

Options
Values
Note

Software version

1.0

2.0 (default)

The 1.0 version is obsolete.

Board version

NyBoard_V1_0 (default) NyBoard_V1_1 NyBoard_V1_2 BiBoard_V0_1

BiBoard_V0_2 BiBoard_V1_0

BiBoard_V0_1 or BiBoard_V0_2 is for Bittle X. BiBoard_V1_0 is for Bittle X V2 only.

Product

Bittle (default) Nybble Bittle X

Mode

Standard (default) RandomMind Voice Mind+ Camera Ultrasonic RandomMind_Ultrasonic Light Touch PIR Gesture IR distance

For NyBoard, these 12 modes can be selected. All of these modes apply to both Bittle and Nybble.

For BiBoard, You only need to upload the Standard mode firmware, and you can switch between different modes via serial port commands. [1]

Serial port

Auto detection or by manual selection.

You can find the correct one through unplug and replug the USB socket on the computer side

  1. You can use the serial commands to switch modes for BiBoard: For BiBoard, Mind+ mode is supported by default, so it doesn't require a serial command to switch on. You can learn about the function of each module through the EXTENSIBLE MODULES.

There's no correlation between the board (hardware) version and the code (software) version.

Finish uploading the firmware

After the upload, the status bar will update the corresponding result, such as the success or failure of firmware uploading. If the uploading is successful, a message window of "Firmware upload complete!" will pop up simultaneously.

Note:

  1. For NyBoard, when you open the software and upload the firmware for the first time, the program will first upload the "Parameters" firmware and then the "Main function" firmware.

  2. After uploding the firmware, if the NyBoard or BiBoard V1 is not connected to the battery and powered on, you will hear repetitive descending melodies, indicating that the battery is low or disconnected. You need to connect the battery and turn on its power.

Check the log file

If the uploading fails, the following message box will pop up:

The log file is located at:

  • For Windows: The log file is in the same directory as UI.exe

  • For macOS: You can check the log file as follows:

When you contact our [email protected], please attach the log file to your email.

There may be some OS platform compatibility issues with different computers.

You can still run the app directly from your terminal:

  1. Go to OpenCat/pyUI/ in your terminal.

  2. Install pyserial and pillow for your Python. You may get a clean Anaconda environment and pip3 install pyserial pillow

  3. Run python3 UI.py

For NyBoard, the firmware uploader calls the application avrdude to upload firmware files to the mainboard.

Linux OS

For Linux system users, in addition to the above steps, you also need to perform the following steps:

1. Install avrdude

  • Fedora: dnf install avrdude

  • CentOS: yum install avrdude

  • Debian / Ubuntu: apt install avrdude

2. Modify the variable avrdudeconfPath in FirmwareUploader.py

  • Fedora / CentOS : avrdudeconfPath = '/etc/avrdude/'

  • Debian / Ubuntu : avrdudeconfPath = '/etc/'

For BiBoard, the firmware uploader calls the application esptool to upload firmware files to the mainboard.

If you have Arduino IDE programming experience, you can see the same log message when uploading.

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