bootloaders

[richardb]

I was thinking about using a Bluetooth adaptor with a pic as a simple connection between a pc and pic.

Then I was thinking it would be nice to be able to update the firmware but the board I've found (it's cheap) doesn't seem to have any other handshake lines to reset the pic.

does the following sound like it will work.

Write a command line tool that when run sends a "unique string" to the comport then close the comport and run the normal bootloader.


Then the pic would have in its normal string receive routine a check for the "unique string" and on receiving, it would reset the pic which would then go into bootloader mode.

Does this sound like it will work.

Richard

[David Barker]

It should work. If it was a non-wireless connection I would say you had a very good chance of getting it to work. Wireless can be a bit more tricky though in terms of communication timeouts...

[richardb]

to be honest I've not really used bootloaders in anger. what kind of timout period is there with the sf bootloader before the pic continues on to the main program.

[David Barker]

I would use the Firewing loader. It's a little more robust than the Swordfish loader with respect to wireless. It can handle wireless bootloading with XBee:
http://www.firewing.info/pmwiki.php?n= ... Bootloader

so it may work OK with bluetooth...

[richardb]

thanks

I'll have a look at that