Ping360 auto_transmit and firmware update

Hey all,

I made a post earlier in the year asking about the auto_transmit functionality of the Ping360s. I notice that there has been an example pushed to the ping-python repository using auto_transmit! Exciting!

I have tried to run that example but believe my firmware or protocol version is insufficient to run the auto_transmit option (in the ping-protocol it suggests v1.1 is needed). See these messages that I printed out

Protocol Version:
{‘version_major’: 1, ‘version_minor’: 0, ‘version_patch’: 0, ‘reserved’: 0}

Device Information:
{‘device_type’: 2, ‘device_revision’: 67, ‘firmware_version_major’: 3, ‘firmware_version_minor’: 1, ‘firmware_version_patch’: 1, ‘reserved’: 0}

Device Data:
{‘mode’: 0, ‘gain_setting’: 1, ‘angle’: 20, ‘transmit_duration’: 32, ‘sample_period’: 80, ‘transmit_frequency’: 750, ‘number_of_samples’: 1200, ‘data’: bytearray(b’')}

Auto Device Data:
None (suggesting that auto is not working with my version?)

The auto_transmit example then hangs as it waits for auto messages I presume it will never get.

Is there any guidance for updating firmware/protocol versions so that I could use the auto_transmit option? I notice there is this open issue for the ping viewer relevant to it ping360: firmware update · Issue #664 · bluerobotics/ping-viewer · GitHub but if there was a manual way to do it I’d be keen to try it. I presume the binary I need is the V3.3_5 from this link ping-firmware/ping360 at master · bluerobotics/ping-firmware · GitHub but are there installation instructions anywhere?

I am also aware of this pull request: Ping360 firmware update functionality by jaxxzer · Pull Request #1070 · bluerobotics/ping-viewer · GitHub which appears to have been completed addressing the above topics, but the downloaded pingviewer still doesn’t have it implemented. Any updates?

Cheers!

Hi @lewisjluck -
Unfortunately those updates aren’t quite ready to be released yet. Rest assured we’ll publicly announce the updates to the Ping360 firmware when it is, as the improvement in scan speed is notable! Thanks for your patience.

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