Edision MIO RS232 Connection

[el bandido]

As already said, the baud rate is 115200 and everything else is default.
RS232 is useful for debugging. You can see usually where and why the receiver stopped. And many times file errors will be shown. RS232 was recently used to help solve the ATSC usb tuner problem in Octagon and other receivers. RS232 output is similar to the telnet debugging commands: init 4 && enigma2.

A sample RS232 debugging log is attached. The information is not useful to most people that own FTA receivers. It is possible to transfer small files through RS232, but that is not something I normally do. The files have to be small...

I can give you a pinout of my cable sometime tomorrow. I don't have the needed tools with me now. And if I remember right, two of the four pins on my cable are connected to GND. (Not 100% on this.)

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This thread needs to be split.

[el bandido]

Only 3 wires needed for RS232 connection. The tip of the phono connector is referred to as tip, then 2, 3, 4 as my phono plug has 4 positions.

pin 3 = Tip (1)
pin 5 = 2
pin 2 = 3
pin 5 = 4

Pins 3, 2, and 5 are used on the computer's RS 232 port.
Pin 3 = TX
Pin 2 = RX
Pin 5 = GND

TX is on the tip, GND is on 2 & 4, RX is on 3. If it doesn't work, swap RX and TX first. Receiver will need to be UN-powered and powered each time to see the RS232 output.

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[ArloG]

You know what?
You're a good man. Will move this to a new thread as I progress. Or not.
Hoping to get it running again and maybe it will help others.
Thanks again.

[el bandido]

No need to start another thread. I will simply split this one in time.

[el bandido]

Is there any data on the rs232 port???

[ArloG]

So far here's what I have.

TIP: RX From receiver to cable
Ring 1: Ground
Ring 2: TX from receiver to cable
Sleeve: Ground

I think that matches what you wrote.
My FTDI cable went south. Tried to pull the recent positions from my ASC1 to store to a file. No response. Confused me.
Connected pin 2&3 of the DB9 and tried a loopback test. Then took a peek on my scope. No TX. So waiting a few replacements.
Win 11 tried to obsolete the Prolific chipset anyway and had to force older drivers. The ones coming are advertised to be ok with 11.
I do have a Linux laptop with DB9. Just too lazy to dig out a cable and fashion an "octopus" for it.

But. On the better side. I am able to see a data stream on the scope from ring 2. 5 data bursts when plugging the receiver in. Quite complex. Then it settles down.
No change when pressing the power button. Nothing when spraying it with IR from the remote. No change with a USB loaded with an image.
Located the Winbond SPI NOR flash. Promising. Last ditch is pull it and do a dump/compare. Bios flashing motherboards saves them usually when they come in bricked.

Satuni gives no response. Edision.gr support replied. Suggested I contact developers. And pointed me to the wrong 3 contact cable.
The tuner driver query back when impressed me. Not knowing how to use the com port to restore it is a big bummer.
The data burst shows me something is happening. So. Let's see.

[el bandido]

The three contact cable is probably correct. I have a three contact cable somewhere that shows data. You only need three anyway, RX, TX, and GND. One of my receivers actually shipped with the correct serial cable.

A FTDI cable should be TTL, which is looking for 5 volts. If so, That cable is wrong. The best thing to have is a computer with a real DB9 serial port. Windows usb to serial connectors may/may not work as Windows is particular about drivers for the thing. Some usb to serial cables are TTL, but you don't find out this tidbit until you try to use it.

TX, GND, RX OR RX, GND, TX. One of those two should work when connected to real serial port.

[ArloG]

Actually good points. Since the cable I had that Brian shipped with the ASC1 worked great for a few years. Pretty sure it was adhering to specs.
Looking further into the actual FTDI chips it looks like they auto negotiate voltages . Either 3.3 or 5V. Cool so far.
But a great time to measure peak to peak on what the short bursts are coming form the mio board.
I'm on a mission to try and save it. Too bad these stb guys don't follow router manufacturers like Asus and Netgear, Linksys and make them basically unbrickable.
Anyways. Located the Samsung emmc chip under the smart card slot and identified it. Just a bit giddy in methods to dump and flash binaries.
If in fact the factory boot screen flash hung and borked it. 100% positive it did. Dumping it and comparing it to the one intended to flash seems the way to go.
It's hard to believe that Edision ships out blank boxes and it's up to developers to burn an os.
And harder to believe they point out the port in the manual but have 0 support on how to use it.
Which was exactly what was stated in the reply to the email I got. In a very nice way, of course.

[el bandido]

No voltage is used period. Only 3 pins, RX, TX, GND. This is why RS232 is written on the receiver port.

For some reason, you have decided that the bootloader is gone. So you are basing everything else on that assumption. Destroying a boorloader in a HEALTHY enigma2 receiver is a very hard thing to do. You have to work at it. This is why you don't see any bootloader support because it rarely happens. In some 10 years of playing with enigma2 receivers, my destroyed bootloader score in a healthy receiver is 0, (except for an AzBox which I say should not count).

Edision receivers are not shipped to be sold "blank". They are shipped with OpenATV on them. Can't remember the make/model, but seems I had one enigma2 receiver delivered without an image in it, which was sort of spooky. Most enigm2 receivers are shipped with OpenATV or their custom image.

Any fta receiver that has RS232 connection on the outside of the box usually mentions it. RS232 ports are not normally used as a means of file recovery. JTAG is the normal recovery method. RS232 is mainly used for reading data. The average person has no clue about RS232, and this may be why it is not mentioned in detail in receiver literature.


Transistor Transistor Logic or TTL is not the same as RS232.
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[Megatron817]

Most of the Mio4k failures reported is the box has power and front display lights up but just wont start enigma2 or has an hdmi problem. I don't think any were boot loader related. That is what happened to mine. The one I have with the hdmi problem displays no video at all where others have reported the splash screen shows but no video after boot so that tells me different failures with different chips. I am no expert.