Guide for building TinyTV2 firmware?

[RavenWorks]

I'm interested in trying to add/fix features for the TinyTV2; I've found the source on your GitHub page, but I've never worked with Arduinos before, so I was hoping there might be some kind of 'getting started' guide?  I've found this guide for the original TinyTV, but I'm not sure how much of it would apply to the 2?

[Ben Rose]

Great! Although it looks like the Github repo is slightly out of date and it's just not yet published to our normal level yet- usually we'd have a basic guide on how to compile. We're just a bit backed up with managing production right now. The other page is specific to the older DIY Kit, so things are similar but not the same. I'll see what we can do to the Github repo today, otherwise I'll probably just post something simple here to get you started. Then we should be able to look at the encoder issue from your other thread, I'm pretty curious about that.

[RavenWorks]

I just checked the github and it seems like there's been an update, does that mean it's up to date now?   Is there anything in the way of a 'getting started' guide you could point me to, for someone who's never worked with arduinos before?

[Ben Rose]

It's been a little while but we have some instructions at https://github.com/TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-TinyTVs-Firmware ready for an initial test- let me know how it goes. We might have some missing steps if you're not already a little familiar with the Arduino IDE.

Thanks,
Ben

[RavenWorks]

Wonderful, thank you!  I'll give it a shot soon...

[RavenWorks]

The Arduino IDE is telling me there's updates for all three of the copied-in libraries (IRRemote, JPEGDEC, SdFat);  should I update them, or does it need precisely the version it came with?

[RavenWorks]

I got all the way to the last step of the guide before hitting something I don't understand:  the instructions say

Uncomment one of these lines in the main .ino file to select the hardware target: //#include "TinyTV2.h" //#include "TinyTVMini.h" //#include "TinyTVKit.h"

but I don't know which .ino file is the "main" one.

[RavenWorks]

From context and experimenting, I'm inferring that TinyCircuits-TinyTVs-Firmware-merge.ino is meant to be the main file, but the problem is that when I try to open it, it complains that it's not in a *folder* named TinyCircuits-TinyTVs-Firmware-merge -- and the folder that it's in, is named after the repo, which is named *very* similarly, but without the "-merge" on the end.   Am I understanding this right?  If so, should I put in a pull request that renames the file?

[RavenWorks]

OK, and at the very last step, it says

Now you can press the upload button (after choosing a port and/or putting the device into bootloader mode)

How do I put the device into bootloader mode?

[Jason]

OK, and at the very last step, it says

Now you can press the upload button (after choosing a port and/or putting the device into bootloader mode)

How do I put the device into bootloader mode?

You can follow the animation here to do that: https://tinytv.us/Update/?screen=tv2_step_3

[RavenWorks]

Thank you, bootloader mode worked!   Now, when I click 'upload', it builds with a number of warnings and notes but seemingly no errors, but then it says

Property 'upload.tool.' is undefined

[RavenWorks]

Just following up to say, I'd still like instructions on how to make the upload button work for convenience's sake, but, I followed the instructions here: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-feather-m0-express-designed-for-circuit-python-circuitpython/uf2-bootloader-details (which amounted to "drag any UF2 file onto the drive that mounted when you launched into bootloader mode") and going the "export compiled binary" route now appears to have worked!!