Bricked my WP-34S

[andrewtune]

So I built my WP-34S back in November. Bought a USB board along with crystal from Harald, installed it and flashed it and it worked perfectly first time. No drama. Very happy with myself.

After a few months of flawless service, a couple of weeks back, I got a notification that the latest version of the firmware had been released. Yep, I thought, let's upgrade!

While it's a little embarrassing, I will admit to having been distracted and tired when I sat down to re-flash my calculator, and therefore I can't say with 100% certainty exactly what I did that caused things to go wrong. Frankly, I wasn't particularly paranoid about it at the time, as I just expected it to all work. Bottom line: I've bricked it. It's (for all intents and purposes) dead.

I have at my disposal an ASUS Windows 7 notebook and a Macbook Pro running Mavericks. I have downloaded and successfully installed all the right drivers on both machines but neither machine can see the calculator. In the case of the Windows box, Windows recognises the device and in device manager you can see a USB serial port (COM7) and the driver is the FTDI driver. mySamba cheerfully suggests COM7 but then says "Error: unable to connect". This is despite going through the steps B3-B9 on p. 168 of the manual a dozen times.

In the case of the Macbook Pro, wp34sflash launches but can only see my bluetooth devices and iPhone.

The batteries have been removed and checked (2.95V+ each).

It seems to me there are four possibilities: the cable, the USB board, the calculator, or drivers.

I can use the same cable to access my kindle (charge it and see content) so I figure the cable's OK.

Getting a new board from Harald or a new calculator are possibilities, but these seem unlikely to be the problem. It was all working couple of days ago. I think this is more a driver issue. Thoughts? I would be grateful for any help.

[Sanjeev Visvanatha]

Confused by your double posting. Didn't you already receive some constructive advice?

[BarryMead]

If you leave the calculator in the un-programmed state, it can drain the batteries quickly.
A good battery will read greater than 3 Volts. Anything below and you will have troubles.

I recommend you start with a fresh set of batteries, and do the following:

1. Put in the new batteries.
2. Attach the USB cable to Harold's board, and the computer.
3. Press the Reset button on the back side of the calculator under the cover.
4. Start the MySamba program and select the proper COM Port (Windows 7 or XP)
5. Press the "Exit/On/Off" button on the front of the calculator.
6. Activate the "Send" button in MySamba.
7. After sending is complete, press the Reset button on the back of the calculator again.
8. Press the "Exit/On/Off" button on the front of the calculator again.

This usually fixes bricked calculators.

Good Luck, Hope this solves your problem.

Sincerely, Barry Mead