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How to Flash Your Planck Light Keyboard via ISP!

Sep 11, 201815547 VIEWS

Hey everybody, Thank you again for picking up your Massdrop x OLKB Planck Light Mechanical Keyboard. We have designed, prototyped, and manufactured working ISP (in-system programming) flashers for everyone in the original Planck Light drop due to a missing bootloader. There were a few revisions from our initial design to the final device you are receiving now and we are glad we took the time to ensure you got a fully working item. Below, you’ll see the step by step directions for using your ISP flasher. After using it for your Planck Light, you can keep this device to use with other compatible PCBs in the future. For those that are joining the current iteration of the Planck Light, you don’t have to worry about the ISP flasher and instructions as your device will be fully functioning out of the box.

Planck Light Bootloader Instructions Before you start, you will need to remove the Planck Light PCB from the case in order to access the bottom side of the PCB. While it is possible to flash the Planck Light from the top side, we recommend that you flash it from the bottom side because the bottom side has the pin labels. It is possible to cause damage if the ISP flasher board is inserted incorrectly. 1. Launch QMK Toolbox: https://qmk.fm/toolbox/

2. Plug in ISP flasher board to your computer. You should see QMK Toolbox acknowledge that "AVRISP device connected" (see screenshot). If you do not see this message, you are running an older version of QMK Toolbox and you will need to upgrade it to v0.0.9+.

3. Line up the pins of the ISP flasher board with the headers on the Planck Light PCB (see red boxes). Make sure the pins are lined up in the same order, i.e. RST to RST, GND to GND, etc.

4. With the pins lined up, Insert the pins of the flasher board into the Planck Light PCB. Insert it far enough such that it remains connected without you having to hold it. You should see the Planck Light light up.

5. In QMK Toolbox, select the bootloader file (top left) and select 'at90usb1286' for the microcontroller (top right). The bootloader file can also be found https://raw.githubusercontent.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/master/util/bootloader_at90usb128_1.0.1.hex

6. Click Flash (top right). You should see messages similar to the screenshot below. It should take about 10 seconds. The LEDs on the Planck Light should turn off once the flashing is complete.

7. Unplug the ISP flasher board from your computer and then plug in your Planck Light to your computer. You should see messages acknowledging both: "AVRISP device disconnected", "DFU device connected".

8. Select the default hex file for the Planck Light or your preferred hex file. If you do not have one already downloaded, QMK Toolbox can download it for you if you select "planck/ light" and click "Load".

9. Click "Flash". You should see the message "Attempting to flash" as it starts and "DFU device disconnected" as it finishes. This should only take a few seconds. If you used the default Planck Light hex file, you should hear the startup sound and see the LEDs light up.

10. You're done!

Having any issues or generally need some help?

Let us know in the discussion and we’ll give you a hand.

(Edited)

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Jan 23, 2020

Where do I get this hardware

Vote

theb2c

Mar 30, 2019

i received my planck light from the second drop, its supposed to be flashed properly but mine stopped working when i tried to put it into flashing mode, now i get "usb device unrecognized" when i plug it in. i think i need the ISP flasher board, but how do i get one of those? i contacted massdrop support but the agent didn't know anything about this keyboard specifically. please help!

Vote

Kikan

126

Apr 4, 2019

theb2cHi, did you made sure you select the right cpu type in QMK Toolbox before going in dfu ? Also there should be a dfu escape key somewhere on the left if I recall it correctly that allows you to get out of dfu. Did it once can’t remember which key I did hit that one time. Edit: Also are you on windows? Did you see that post ? => https://www.massdrop.com/talk/9635/talk/2327390?utm_source=linkshare&referer=TQQBXA

(Edited)

Vote

adamSrgnt

Feb 1, 2019

I can't get past step 2. QMK Toolbox isn't recognizing the flasher. I'm using v0.0.9.

Vote

Sparroew

Dec 22, 2018

I finally got some time to work on this and sat down to follow the instructions to finally get my Planck working. I reached step seven, and after unplugging the ISP flasher and plugging the keyboard back into the computer, I am no longer able to do anything. "DFU Device Connected" does not appear, the keyboard does not respond to any input, the lights do not come on and if I try to click flash, I get "There are no devices available." Please let me know where I went wrong. I am really at the end of my patience for this keyboard.

Lukelex

Jan 13, 2019

SparroewSame problem here

ckofy

Jan 26, 2019

LukelexAfter successful flashing of boot loader, I had the same issue that QMK Toolbox does not recognize the keyboard. I was able to successfully flash firmware using QMK development environment in Linux. QMK Toolbox is unable to detect Planck Light after pressing reset button even now when it is functional. EDIT: Well, I found out why QMK Toolbox was unable to detect the board. This is because drivers for AT90USB128 chips was not installed to the Windows. I downloaded the Amtel Flip tool, and it has drivers in usb folder, which may be pointed to from Device Manager to use for Unknown device as the AT90USB128 is.

(Edited)

Vote

Kittehn

Sep 28, 2018

So, i have attempted a flash of this keyboard. At first, every time I got up to the disconnect the ISP and connect the USB then hit load (step 7/8) I would keep getting an SSL error. I did the manual driver install as suggested. At this point I am no longer able to get it out of flash mode. The lights no longer come on. the program doesn't seem to recognize anything any more. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I will resort to fire if I need to. Thanks.
Also, how do you get it to do the awesome light show like in the advertised video...?

Txaume

Oct 28, 2018

KittehnI have found the same problem. The keyboard seems dead now!

Kittehn

Nov 13, 2018

TxaumeI guess no one has a solution for this...?

keru

Sep 22, 2018

I didn't find how to do the whole thing using linux only and without qmktoolbox, so I'm sharing in case anybody needs : - dependencies (for ubuntu): gcc-avr avrdude avr-libc dfu-programmer - wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/master/util/bootloader_at90usb128x_1_0_1.hex - plug the ISP flasher board in the keyboard then flash the bootloader : `sudo avrdude -p at90usb1286 -c avrisp -P /dev/ttyACM0 -U flash:w:bootloader_at90usb128x_1_0_1.hex:i` - unplug the ISP flasher board and plug the keyboard normaly - get a firmware (I used `make planck/light:default`) - flash the firmware `make planck/light:default:dfu`

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i_dont_want_a_frigging_uname

Jan 14, 2019

keruthank you very much, works perfect on arch

(Edited)

Vote

Sail4sea

181

Jan 26, 2019

Did you forget to put sudo at the front when you did it? I ran into this error on another build. There is probably a group that needs to be given permission or something to do it without root, but I am not sure how to do that.

Vote

narze

Sep 16, 2018

#Protip To remove the bottom screws, use the corner of a plastic card (eg. credit card) push it into the other side to lock the plastic and start screwing, you don‘thave to pull any keycaps!

genehack

Sep 14, 2018

Is there some particular trick to removing the screws from the case bottom? Almost all of mine just seem to spin without actually coming out...

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genehack

Sep 15, 2018

Thanks y'all. I did end up pulling the caps and then just pressing down on the board pretty hard, and they all eventually engaged and I could work through the update procedure.

VinS

146

Sep 15, 2018

genehackI hope you enjoy your planck light, and have a great weekend, sir.

Vote

BangoSkank

Sep 13, 2018

When I get to Step 9, I get the error message below instead. Can anyone help me out? I'm not sure where I went wrong.
Flash complete *** DFU device connected: AT90USB128 DFU -- 03EB:2FFB:1 *** Downloading the file: http://qmk.fm/compiled/planck_light_default.hex *** Downloading the file: http://qmk.fm/compiled/planck_light_default.hex *** Attempting to flash, please don't remove device >>> dfu-programmer.exe at90usb1286 erase --force dfu-programmer: no device present. >>> dfu-programmer.exe at90usb1286 flash "X:\Users\Theo\Downloads\bootloader_at90usb128x_1_0_1.hex" dfu-programmer: no device present. >>> dfu-programmer.exe at90usb1286 reset dfu-programmer: no device present. >>> avrdude.exe -p at90usb1286 -c avrisp -U flash:w:"X:\Users\Theo\Downloads\bootloader_at90usb128x_1_0_1.hex":i -P COM3 avrdude.exe: warning at C:\Users\Theo\AppData\Local\QMK\QMK Toolbox\0.0.9\avrdude.conf:14976: part atmega32u4 overwrites previous definition C:\Users\Theo\AppData\Local\QMK\QMK Toolbox\0.0.9\avrdude.conf:11487. avrdude.exe: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.01s avrdude.exe: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying) Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.01s avrdude.exe: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying) Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.01s avrdude.exe: Device signature = 0x000000 avrdude.exe: Yikes! Invalid device signature. Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override this check. avrdude.exe done. Thank you.

SunMystic

Oct 25, 2018

BangoSkankDid you ever resolve this? I have a similar problem.

Vote

alexmedkex

Dec 18, 2018

BangoSkanksolution for this? EDIT: I'm an idiot, I just forgot to connect the bootloader to the keyboard.

(Edited)

Vote

mrhinks

Sep 13, 2018

Hey everybody. Received the following when trying to load the hex file on using the ISP in QMK Toolbox: Attempting to flash, please don't remove device >>> avrdude -p at90usb1286 -c avrisp -U flash:w:/Users/kyle/Downloads/bootloader_at90usb128x_1_0_1.hex:i -P /dev/cu.usbmodem12341 -C avrdude.conf dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libftdi.1.dylib Referenced from: /Applications/QMK Toolbox.app/Contents/Resources/avrdude Reason: image not found
Any ideas on how to fix this? I'm kind of a newb when it comes to doing this stuff. Right now I was looking at getting Xcode and trying to load avrdude?

Vote

mrhinks

Sep 13, 2018

mrhinksok, just an update in case anybody ran into the same thing. I thankfully had homebrew loaded and followed the directions on the following page and then tried again and it worked. https://github.com/qmk/qmk_toolbox (see dependencies section)

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