The E Series is Particle's mass production form factor for the Electron, our cellular development kit. This purpose of this tutorial is to help customers using the E Series to update their hardware to the most recent version of Device OS firmware.
IMPORTANT: If you are setting up a new E Series LTE Evaluation Kit or E402 LTE module, note that there is a known issue in u-blox modem firmware that results in repeated handshake errors the first time the device connects to the Particle Cloud. Devices with this issue will typically flash cyan with intermittent red flashes for 5 to 30 minutes, after which the device will usually connect successfully.
To implement the Particle workaround that resolves this issues, please update your E Series LTE device to firmware v1.0.0 or later using the instructions in this post.
How to update using USB (recommended)
If you have not installed the Particle CLI you should do that first.
Connect the E Series board to your computer. Make sure you use the E Series USB connector, the one closest to the battery connector.
Put the E Series board in DFU mode (blinking yellow) by holding down RESET and MODE, releasing RESET and continuing to hold down MODE while the main LED blinks magenta until it blinks yellow, then release.
From a command prompt or terminal window:
particle update
How to update over-the-air
It is possible to upgrade your E Series Device OS over-the-air, once you get to breathing cyan and claim your device, as well. Note that it will take a long time (sometimes a half hour) to successfully get to breathing cyan using the device OS version that was installed at the factory, so upgrading by USB will get you online faster.
Run the following commands in a command prompt or terminal window
cd Downloads
particle flash YOUR_DEVICE_NAME tinker-1.0.0-electron.bin
The E Series module will blink magenta and reboot 4 times but after the last reboot it should be running v1.0.0. Note that this will use about 270 K of your 3 MB included data allowance.
Unfortunately, 3 hours later unable to connect it…
SIM was activated though.
firmware was updated (was it? – how to check current version?)
particle flash --usb system-part1-0.8.0-rc.11-electron.bin
Found DFU device 2b04:d00a
spawning dfu-util -d 2b04:d00a -a 0 -i 0 -s 0x08060000 -D system-part1-0.8.0-rc.11-electron.bin
dfu-util 0.9
Copyright 2005-2009 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2016 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to http://sourceforge.net/p/dfu-util/tickets/
dfu-util: Invalid DFU suffix signature
dfu-util: A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d00a
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash "
Downloading to address = 0x08060000, size = 77552
Download [=========================] 100% 77552 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Flash success!
particle update
> Your device is ready for a system update.
> This process should take about 30 seconds. Here it goes!
! System firmware update successfully completed!
> Your device should now restart automatically.
Device continue to blink green, sometimes stop and led is set to white, then blinks green again.
I can’t claim it through CLI or app. Device doesn’t show up in the list of devices
Could you please point to any troubleshooting guide?
particle doctor
The Device Doctor will put your device back into a healthy state
It will:
- Upgrade system firmware
- Flash the default Tinker app
- Reset the device and server keys
- Clear the Wi-Fi settings
The Doctor will operate on your Electron connected over USB
You'll be asked to put your device in DFU mode several times to reset different settings.
Updating system firmware
Put the device in DFU mode
Tap RESET/RST while holding MODE/SETUP until the device blinks yellow.
? Select Continue when ready Continue
> Your device is ready for a system update.
> This process should take about 30 seconds. Here it goes!
! System firmware update successfully completed!
> Your device should now restart automatically.
Flashing the Device Doctor app
This app allows changing more settings on your device
Put the device in DFU mode
Tap RESET/RST while holding MODE/SETUP until the device blinks yellow.
? Select Continue when ready Continue
Flash success!
The Doctor didn't complete sucesfully. undefined
> Please visit our community forums for help with this error:
https://community.particle.io/
So, after fiddling with the device for another few hours it only worked when I did particle flash --usb tinker-0.8.0-rc.11-electron.bin
E-series was claimed and was finally seen in the apps and console.
However, it reset in a few minutes and since then it rapidly blinks cyan trying to connect to the cloud. Nothing helps. I re-installed tinker, but it didn’t work. Device continues to blink cyan.