Some directions for install+flashing kickstarter edition of spark core. For windows.
Steps may be missing, and the instructions are not normalized or nessisarily laied out in a sane order.
Note, this tutorial is for those running on windows who are unable to complete the offical update one due to some minor snags regarding drivers and installing tools like NodeJS to get up and running.
- Get Chocolatey
- Get node & npm
- Get & git.
- use those to get the Particle cli
- Get DFU_Util to allow flashing
- Get drivers for flashing the device
- apply Spark Core firmware updates
- Get drivers for running the device
- Configure the device to work with your WiFi
- blink an LED
Chocolatey is a package manger for windows. It makes it easier to get other programs like node.js & npm.
Per their website: https://chocolatey.org/ you can install chocolaty by running this command in the command line.
@powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin
You'll need to run the command line as an administrator:
and here's what it looks like when you put the command in (tip: right click to paste) and hit enter:
Now close and reopen any cmd windows so they can get access to the new path settings.
To verify the install, run the command
choco
On my machine I see "Chocolatey v0.9.9.12" - you may have a different version.
Using the search: https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=nodejs to find the latest package of node.js. In this case, i'm using https://chocolatey.org/packages/nodejs.install
If you haven't installed it, with a (fresh) admin command line up run this:
choco install nodejs.install
It should look like this
And then install git so that npm depends on to get the files for the particle tool.
choco install git.install
Now that you have NPM, we can follow deep update process
This requires installing the particle command line utility.W
Which basically involves running this command:
npm install -g particle-cli
Now you need to get the Dfu utility & the DFU usb driver installed per: https://community.particle.io/t/tutorial-installing-dfu-driver-on-windows-24-feb-2015/3518
Get the dfultil files from http://dfu-util.sourceforge.net/
Specifically from http://dfu-util.sourceforge.net/releases/dfu-util-0.8-binaries/win32-mingw32/ (or whatever the latest version is for windows)
I just put the .exe and the .dll file along side particle (so it has path)
You can ask where particle is installed by runing the command in
where particle
For me it was in %appdata%\npm\particle\
You can use Zadig for windows to install the DFU driver
These are the settings you want to use:
Set the sparkcore into DFU mode
https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/modes/core/#dfu-mode-device-firmware-upgrade-
<insert vine?>
Then
particle flash --usb deep_update_2014_06
it should work, "flash success!"
if you see this:
then you either don't have the dfu driver, or your sparkcore isn't in the right mode (see)
you may need to do a factory reset https://docs.particle.io/support/troubleshooting-support/core/#full-firmware-upgrade
you need to flash these on:
particle flash --factory tinker
particle flash --usb cc3000
particle flash --usb tinker
one at a time - setting it to dfu mode as nessisary
now you should be able to use the tinker app to access your device.
you can get that here: https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/tinker/core/
https://community.particle.io/t/installing-the-usb-driver-on-windows-serial-debugging/882
you will need to get the offical sparkcore driver. https://s3.amazonaws.com/spark-website/Spark.zip
And install it:
in your device manager, it should show sparkcore as a com port
