Edgertronic camera software recovery
A bricked camera is when the software on the micro SD card that runs the camera is no longer usable. The micro SD card is the small one that you normally don't remove in the recessed slot between the big SD card and the LEDs. If you lost power during a software update, you may have bricked your camera. If you think your camera is bricked for some other reason, please send an email to info@edgertronic.com with the details of what happened right before the camera stopped functioning correctly.
Get latest camera software
Download the microSD card image file:
Unzip the downloaded file to get the microSD card image file.
Removing the micro SD card
The micro SD card is in the slot next to the big SD card. The micro SD card is recessed and in a spring loaded slot. You remove the micro SD card by gently pushing the card farther into the camera (just like you do with the big SD card) and then the micro SD card will pop out. You may find a paperclip is the right size to allow you to press the micro SD card farther into the camera).
Be sure to press the micro SD card straight in (meaning perpendicular to the camera back) otherwise the card may hang up on the edge of the slot.
It is important that you insert the micro-SD card in the correct orientation. The micro SD label faces the system and camera LEDs and the gold contacts face the big SD card. Incorrectly inserting or forcing the micro SD card will cause damage to the camera that is not covered under warranty.
Unbrick using Windows
Set Up
Before we can actually write to the micro SD card from a windows machine you need to download a Windows program that can image the contents of the image file directly over the entire micro SD card. There are several such programs to choose from.
Disk Imaging
Using BalenaEtcher (pc)
For years, we have been using BalenaEtcher on a Mac computer to burn the micro SD cards. I recently realized that BalenaEtcher runs on Windows as well. I tried it out using the following steps and was successful on a Windows 10 computer.
- BalenaEtcher Download and install Download for Windows (x86|x64). I tested v1.5.116.
- Install a micro SD card into your PC. I pressed cancel when asked if I wanted to format the card.
- Download the zip file from inside the sdcard_image directory as described above.
- Run BalenaEtcher
- Select Flash from file. The zip file you downloaded will likely be in the cleverly named Downloads directory on your Windows PC.
- Select Select target. I had to show hidden files. I installed an 8GB micro SD card, so I selected the device with SD in the name and a size 7.88GB. For some reason Balena had incorrectly identified the SD card as a system drive, so I had to click Yes, I'm sure'. If you are uncertian, exit Balena, remove the micro SD card, and run Balena again to see which device is no long in the select target list.
- Wait until Balena reports Flash Complete! before removing the micro SD card.
Unbrick using Mac O.S.
Using BalenaEtcher (mac)
For years, we have been using BalenaEtcher on a Mac computer to burn the micro SD cards.
- BalenaEtcher Download and install Download for MAC. I tested v1.5.86.
- Install a micro SD card into your PC. I pressed cancel when asked if I wanted to format the card.
- Download the zip file from inside the sdcard_image directory as described above.
- Run BalenaEtcher
- Select Flash from file. The zip file you downloaded will likely be in the cleverly named Downloads directory on your Windows PC.
- Select Select target. I had to show hidden files. I installed an 8GB micro SD card, so I selected the device with SD in the name and a size 7.88GB. For some reason Balena had incorrectly identified the SD card as a system drive, so I had to click Yes, I'm sure'. If you are uncertian, exit Balena, remove the micro SD card, and run Balena again to see which device is no long in the select target list.
- Wait until Balena reports Flash Complete! before removing the micro SD card.
Unbrick using Ubuntu
- Plug your micro SD card into the Ubuntu computer using the appropriate adaptor. Find the dev name for your micro SD card using command:
df
- Unmount the file system on the micro SD card using N where N is the number of the disk taken from the above command output i.e. for example, if the dev name is /dev/sdb1, replace N=1 in the command below:
umount /dev/sdbN
- Use the dd command to completely overwrite the contents of the microSD card. In the example below, the downloaded disk image is sdcard.20151216204804.img. Please change this as appropriate if you downloaded the image to a different location. Make sure to use the correct dev name. Suppose if the dev name is found /dev/sdb1, then use /dev/sdb in the 'dd' command (you need to ommit 'N') in the case of Ubuntu.
FILE=sdcard.20151216204804.img sudo dd bs=64M if=~/Downloads/$FILE of=/dev/sdb
- Now that the 'dd' has finished, run the 'sync' command and then unplug the microsd card from the Ubuntu system.
sync
Reinstalling micro SD card into camera
Once you have an imaged micro SD insert it back into the camera. It is important that you insert the micro-SD card in the correct orientation. The micro SD label faces the system and camera LEDs and the gold contacts face the big SD card. Incorrectly inserting or forcing the micro SD card will cause damage to the camera that is not covered under warranty. Insert the micro SD card with the camera powered off. You can use a paperclip to gently push the micro SD card into the slot. Give the camera about a minute then the LEDs should be back on and the camera should update itself. If the image you used to update the camera was an older version of software you will need to conduct a software update manually after the camera finishes the re-image process.
Simply take the newest software update (or desired software version's update) file and copy it directly onto the SD card(the big one), power on the camera and wait through the LED “white pattern” as the camera updates.
If the camera still does not work, try a factory reset.
Trying out a beta release
We are a rather open company. We use Open Source software. As much as practical, we make the camera's source code available. We work hard supporting CAMAPI so you can integrate the camera into your existing processes. We even make our buggy beta releases available for you to try out. Only we ask this one simple request in return. Please, please, please keep your fully tested micro SD card that came with the camera intact. Go buy another quality U10 class micro SD card to use when running the beta release software. That way, if the beta release causes more problems than it solves, you can simply swap out the micro SD card with the one that came with the camera and you are back in business.
To see what beta release is available, browse to the releases directory.
Since you are going to be programming that brand new microSD card, first extract the SD card image from the beta release update tarball and then program the shiny new microSD card with the beta version of the software, as described above. You may be able to use the extracted image from the sdcard_image directory if it exists for the release you want to test.
If you are brave enough to try out the beta release, you likely have good suggestions on what we can be doing better. Please share those suggestions with us at info@sanstreak.com .