Ultimate7e tutorial: Processor upgrade

Okay..Here the scope. I ordered a extra 7E thinking I was not able to fix the old one. I guessed I got the right tool this time. Upgrading the processor was a breeze this time around.
I really don't need all this controller. So anybody that was thinking of upgrading theirs and don't have the right tool to do it, here is your chance. Not thinking of making money here.
Helping out the community here.
Anybody interested just PM me.

So... Add one more to the list.
John-Boy is the new owner.

I will be joining the club soon...

Joined the ultimate 7e =club
Running 3x2 switch mod + cc2500 + nrf24l01.
Going to add a7105 asap
And did the wiring for adding 3 pots.
Funny cause I also just bought the Taranis but will be using this a lot too

welcome guys, it's clear now that the u7e adoption rate is higher than any of us thought it would be at the start, and thanks to those numbers we now have the u7e build as an official target in the nightly builds

Did you heat the ARM from the top? Or did someone remove the display and heat from the bottom?

Got my ST-Link, ready to mod...

you heat it from above bud, take your time ans be careful as you don't want to lift any of the traces for the mcu, or move anything surrounding the mcu. follow the links in the first post to silpstreams blog, he has an excellent howto there showing the full uprgade process

Got myself a dead devo. I can program the boot loader no errors there, it just does not switch on...



I think i found what is wrong, my SMT has no flash size, FAKE?

i'd make sure that all of the pins have a good connection and that there aren't any shorts first before thinking anything else bud, as being able to flash the bootloader only requires 4 pins to be connected properly, and that doesn't confirm a sucessful mcu replacement, I speak from experience lol

BOOT0 was shorted after i removed the jumper, this was the only thing i didn't check 3 times. Re flashed, modded my mm1.3 and redid the switch mod. The mm1.3 is not working again, will deal wit that tomorrow. I'm calling it a day.

Thanks HappyHarry.

p.s. the STM32 doesn't show flash size, bought it from aliexpress.

Fake low level iC's are really more of a myth than anything... Unauthorized, sold out the back door maybe but faking iC's is EXTREMELY hard to do. Fake FTDI's? Sure, those things have been the same part for 20 years now but the likelihood of a fake STM32 is just so low I wouldn't put ANY more thought into it, especially not when the company Nuvoton exists making chips 1:1 compatible with STm chips, there just isn't a need / demand / market for fakes.

Yesterday I got a CYRF6936 module missing error a few times on switching on the transmitter. This was not the case before I modded the mm1.3. I never seen that before with old processor, but I noticed that the NRF24L01 stops working while I was playing in menu of TX.

Any ideas?

Sorry for the unrelated post but when I did the ultimate 7e mod and flashed the bootloader I didn't short the boot pins and everything worked fine as far as I remember. Any reasons as to how or why this happened ?
Thanks for everything everyone !

My Ultimate 7E is fully working... Head to proper edit hardwere.ini. Three modules out of 4 working fine, heave to visit a friend to test the forth module.

Very happy with my upgrade, keep up the good work guys!

Add another Ultimate 7E successfully upgraded to the list!

Everything working as it should - about an hour and a half to do it, without so much as a hitch.

So far (as it was done to my previously modded 7E) it only has 2 x 3-way switches and a CC2500 RF module, plus the obligatory range mod!

Have a sound module and speaker here ready to install later today, followed by a couple more switches and hopefully a pair of Taranis 'sliders' (pots) I have had in the junk box for years!

Has to be one of the best upgrades going with a £2.50 STM32 (512k) chip!

Kudos to you coders that have made this a thing to behold!

Finally got my MCU replacement working in the 7e. Three processors later and a couple of pulled pads requiring some jumpers directly to pins. I learned a lot in this process. I think I could do another one pretty easily.

Quickchip works great to remove the processor though but it is stinkin hard to solder the processor back in with just an iron, it never worked for me. Ultimately I used a cheap youyue 858d+ hot air station to install successfully and did some touch up work with a very fine point iron. I still needed to remove a couple solder bridges on pins and to make up for pulled up pin pads I needed to solder directly to traces and then to the cpu pin a couple of times.

Lots of time with a multimeter checking for pin shorts and continuity. I almost gave up but decided to give it one more shot. Found a pin that wasn't soldered to the pad correctly. Corrected that and viola it all worked. It ended up being a pretty expensive replacement with the hot air rework station purchase and several destroyed mcu's. But the challenge is part of the fun.

Once this one is fully functioning with an ordered 4 in 1 module, I may tackle the other 7e that I currently have with a 3 in 1 installed.

I need some help understanding the button matrix. I have a U7e with two added three way switches and a 4 in 1 module. I just discovered an issue with it and need some help debugging it.

The Hold switch works intermittently. I discovered it when I was adding switch toggles to the screen. If I flex the board slightly it will then function correctly. I am assuming that I have a marginal connection on a pin on the MCU which is causing the issue, as I have tested the switch and wiring with a multi-meter.

Since there is a switch matrix I am assuming that is could either be a row or column pin. It would be helpful If I knew which pins on the MCU to concentrate on. The documentation that I can find just says button matrix row 1 or button matrix column 1. It would be helpful to know which switches are represented by each row and column position. Is there any documentation of that somewhere? I may ultimately have to run a jumper from a via on the back of the board to resolve this.

For my current flying I don't use this switch often but it just bugs me to have something not working if I need it.

Hi,
I am not near my info for the Ultimate7e at the moment, but if you are getting intermittent contact on one (or more!) of the MCU pins, it really should be checked and fully reworked. A simple drag of the soldering iron tip may be all is needed.
Did you do the MCU replacement yourself?
Whilst running a jumper is an option, it is a dirty fix and IF other MCU pins are marginal, you could end up with an out of control model at any time.

I have touched up the pins with a fine tip iron and still get the same. I did do the replacement myself and it took a couple of tries to get it right. In the process of removing the mcu a couple of times there was damage to a couple of pads that I had to correct with jumpers. The board was pretty ugly buy the time I finally got things working. I feel that I have taken the touch up with iron about as far as I can, also it would be helpful to know which pin in particular I am having an issue with so that I could concentrate on fixing that pin.

I'm not sure how you wired up your 2 extra switches. Here is the row-column mapping for the switches. You'll find it in the source code also of you want more details.



Hope it helps!

I wired my extra 3 way switches with the origional 7e switch mod so the hold and fmod are still original wiring. Which row and column is the origional hold switch wired to? Or is it wired to a discrete pin?