I talked to the Trimble sales manager. He said there really should be mainly two versions of firmware, and they are mated to 2 different versions of hardware, so there would be no point of upgrading.
I will try to find the specifics, but he said the older units have much more available setings, to the point where too many customers were messing up their units by playing with settings they should have left alone. So, when they redesigned the hardware a few years later, they removed some tweaks from the firmware to eliminate a lot of the service calls. An example of what you could do with an older unit but not with a new one would be to upgrade the OCXO, which would require to change/optimize a number of parameters regarding loop compensation and so forth. The Trimble software is available in the Support section http://www.trimble.com/tmg_thunderbolt_ts.asp?Nav=Collection-2357 The manual is pretty detailed and you have enough info to write your own software, but if you will be using a PC, the Trimble software does all you want. I am planning to write software for a microcontroller to drive an LCD display with essential health information, so I don't need to tie a PC for monitoring, but that will take a little while as my plate is full at the moment. When I have something, I will post info there. That will be using a variant of 8051, probably a Silabs chip, or Atmel, because I have a lot of C code and a good compiler for the 8051. For the moment, I am working on a Visual Basic program just to understand the protocol. Didier KO4BB Richard W. Solomon wrote: > I recall reading that the Trimble Thunderbolts require special software > only available from Trimble. Am I correct or guilty of another brain burp ?? > > I looked at the Trimble site and didn't see where I could download any > software. I also found a thread about difficulties in getting firmware > upgrades. > > Can someone clarify this for me. > > Thanks, > > 73, Dick, W1KSZ > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts