Table of Contents
- CSR BlueCore USB SPI programmer
This is USB SPI programmer for CSR BlueCore chips, based on FTDI FT232R USB to UART converter chip. Software is written for use with CSR tools (such as BlueLab or BlueSuite) under Linux with Wine or under Windows. It works by replacing SPI LPT programmer driver, spilpt.dll, in CSR applications.
Programmer hardware can be made using simple FTDI breakout board. Alternately You can build dedicated programmer using the included schematic.
Project home page: https://github.com/lorf/csr-spi-ftdi.
Generally, all CSR BlueCore chips starting with BlueCore 2 should be supported. Programmer was tested with the following chips:
- BC417 (on HC-05 module)
- BC57F687A
- CSR8645
- BlueCore chips require 3.3V or 1.8V I/O voltage level. Check the datasheet.
- Some chips (like CSR8645) share SPI pins with PCM function. For such chips to
be accessible via SPI,
SPI_PCM#pin should be pulled up to I/O voltage supply through a 10K resistor. - Some bluetooth modules based on BlueCore chips with builtin battery chargers may be shipped with battery configuration enabled. Such modules will shutdown shortly after power on if you don't connect charged battery. This can be disabled using appropriate Configuration Tool.
Programmer hardware is based on FT232R chip. It is also possible to use later generation FTDI chips, such as FT2232C/D/H or FT232H, with minor code modifications.
You can build a simple programmer using popular FT232RL breakout boards (search Ebay for "FT232RL module 3.3" for example). Pinout specified in spi.c file. Change it at will. Note that FTDI boards usually provide 5V or 3.3V I/O levels while CSR chips require 3.3V or 1.8V I/O level. You may supply appropriate VCCIO to FTDI chip or use logic level converter if levels don't match. See description of VCCIO pin in FTDI chip datasheet for details.
| Signal | FT232RL pin | FTDI pin name | FTDI GPIO bit | CSR pin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS# | 2 | DTR# | D4 | SPI_CS# |
| CLK | 3 | RTS# | D2 | SPI_CLK |
| MOSI | 6 | RI# | D7 | SPI_MOSI |
| MISO | 9 | DSR# | D5 | SPI_MISO |
| TX | 1 | TXD | Not used | UART_RX |
| RX | 5 | RXD | Not used | UART_TX |
| LED_RD | 10 | DCD# | D6 | -- |
| LED_WR | 11 | CTS# | D3 | -- |
SPI and UART BlueCore pins could be connected directly to FTDI pins, but I'd recommend to wire them through the 220 Ohm (or so) resistors.
TX and RX connections are optional and provide connectivity to BlueCore UART.
LED connections are optional. Wire LEDs cathodes through the current limiting resistors (330 Ohm works fine) to the appropriate FTDI pins. Wire LEDs anodes to FTDI 3V3 pin.
KiCad schematic for a dedicated programmer can be found in hardware
subdirectory.
This driver implements CSR SPI API version 1.3 (used in CSR BlueSuite 2.1, 2.3, CSR BlueLab 4.1) and 1.4 (CSR BlueSuite 2.4, 2.5, 2.5.8). DLL is built for each API version during a compile time.
You can check the API version of CSR package by inspecting original spilpt.dll with the following command on Linux:
winedump -j export spilpt.dll | grep spifns_stream_
If the output is not empty, then the original DLL implements newer version of API (version 1.4).
New versions of BlueSuite can be found at https://www.csrsupport.com/PCSW. Old versions of BlueSuite can be found at https://www.csrsupport.com/PCSWArchive. Access to these pages requires registration.
Prebuilt drivers for Linux and Windows can be downloaded from https://github.com/lorf/csr-spi-ftdi/releases.
Install Wine:
sudo apt-get install wine
Install CSR BlueSuite in Wine. Find all instances of spilpt.dll installed and move them out of the way:
find ~/.wine -iname spilpt.dll -execdir mv {} {}.orig \;
Copy approproate version of the .dll.so file to Wine system directory:
sudo cp -p spilpt-wine-api<SPI_API_version>/spilpt.dll.so /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/wine/
where <SPI_API_version> is one of 1.3 or 1.4. Alternately You can specify
location of the .dll.so file in WINEDLLPATH environment variable, see wine(1)
man page for details.
Run CSR apps.
- Install CSR package such as BlueSuite;
- Make a backup of spilpt.dll in your application directory (e.g. in
C:\Program Files (x86)\CSR\BlueSuite 2.5.8\); - Copy appropriate version of spilpt.dll from spilpt-win32-api1.4 or spilpt-win32-api1.3 directory (see "CSR SPI API versions") to your application directory;
- Connect Your FTDI device to computer;
- Download and run Zadig from http://zadig.akeo.ie/. In Options menu choose "List all devices", choose Your FTDI device ("FT232R USB UART" or similar), choose libusbK driver, press "Replace driver" or "Install driver". This will install generic libusb-compatible driver for your FTDI chip. There is a tutorial on running libftdi programs on Windows here: http://embedded-funk.net/running-libftdi-under-windows/;
- Run your CSR apps.
Install build tools:
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential
Install development libraries:
sudo apt-get install -y wine-dev libc6-dev libstdc++-dev libftdi-dev
Build with command:
make -f Makefile.wine all
Install build tools:
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential gcc-multilib g++-multilib
Install 32 bit stuff:
sudo apt-get install -y wine-dev:i386 libc6-dev-i386 libstdc++-dev:i386 libftdi-dev:i386
Build with command:
make -f Makefile.wine all
Install CSR BlueSuite in Wine. Find all instances of spilpt.dll installed and move them out of the way:
find ~/.wine -iname spilpt.dll -execdir mv {} {}.orig \;
Install Wine dll into the Wine libraries directory:
sudo make -f Makefile.wine SPIAPI=<SPI_API_version> install
where <SPI_API_version> is one of 1.3 or 1.4 (see "CSR SPI API
versions"). Alternately You can specify location of the .dll.so file in
WINEDLLPATH environment variable, see wine(1) man page for details.
Install MinGW cross-development environment:
sudo apt-get install -y gcc-mingw32
Download precompiled libusb for windows from http://sourceforge.net/projects/libusb/files/ and extract it to the libusb directory:
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/libusb/files/libusb-1.0/libusb-1.0.18/libusb-1.0.18-win.7z
7z x -olibusb libusb-1.0.18-win.7z
Download precompiled liftdi for windows from http://sourceforge.net/projects/picusb/files/ and extract it:
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/picusb/files/libftdi1-1.1_devkit_x86_x64_21Feb2014.zip
unzip libftdi1-1.1_devkit_x86_x64_21Feb2014.zip
ln -s libftdi1-1.1_devkit_x86_x64_21Feb2014 libftdi1
Build with command:
make -f Makefile.mingw all
- Driver sometimes fails with error "Unable to start read (invalid control data)". The problem is clearly in SPI communication, but I still can not figure out the cause. Anyway, restarting operation helps.
- Current implementation of 1.4 API is based on a wild guess and is just a wrapper around 1.3 functions. It doesn't support multiple programmers connected at the same time and may contain other bugs.
- This project is a derivative of Frans-Willem Hardijzer's reverse-engineered spilpt.dll drivers https://github.com/Frans-Willem/CsrSpiDrivers;
- Thanks to unicorn from http://www.nebo-forum.kiev.ua/ for the idea of a DLL for Wine.
- LPT programmer and general info by Robin Gross http://byron76.blogspot.com/;
- Reverse-engineered SPILPT driver + Arduino SPILPT driver by Frans-Willem Hardijzer, for Windows https://github.com/Frans-Willem/CsrSpiDrivers;
- SPILPT driver for Wine under Linux by unicorn using FTDI MPSSE http://www.nebo-forum.kiev.ua/viewtopic.php?p=58291#p58291;
- Software to read/write BC4 flash over SPI using Raspberry PI GPIO http://members.efn.org/~rick/work/rpi.csr.html;
- USBSPI programmer based on CSR BC3 chip using original firmware by Jernej Škrabec http://jernej87.blogspot.com/;
- USBSPI programmer software for Linux by Jernej Škrabec
https://gitorious.org/csrprogrammer:
- USBSPI protocol analysis http://jernej87.blogspot.com/2012/10/csrs-usb-programmer-protocol-analysis.html;
- Using USBSPI on Linux http://jernej87.blogspot.com/2012/10/dumping-bluecore4-firmware-on-linux.html;
- USBSPI programmer based on Stellaris Launchpad by Frans-Willem Hardijzer, for Windows https://github.com/Frans-Willem/CsrUsbSpiDeviceRE;
- BlueSuite 2.5.0 "source code" https://www.csrsupport.com/document.php?did=38692 - it doesn't contain source code for SPI drivers but at least development header files in CSRSource/result/include/ are of some help.