Flashing QCX Firmware using a Teensy 3.2

Today, I wanted to flash my QCX qrp transceiver with the latest available firmware. But I didn’t have an AVR programmer at hand.

In a tutorial Simon VK3ELH describes how to use an Arduino UNO to program the QCX. Unfortunately I don’t have an Arduino UNO neither. What I do have are Teensy 3.2, and seems to be, you could use those too.

I’m asuming you already had the Teensy 3.2, so you most likely also already installed Arduino and Teensyduino. Open a new sketch and go to File -> Examples and look for ArduinoISP. Connect the Teensy 3.2 with a usb cable to you computer, select the appropriate board (Teensy 3.2 / 3.1), press verify and upload the sketch. You should not get any errors, no codechanges are needed.

Next you wire up the Teensy 3.2 to the QCX according to the following schematic:

Check the QRPLabs@groups.io forum to find out where you can download the latess firmware. In this example it’s version 1.04.

To flash the new firmware to the QCX, you need a program called AVRDUDESS. You can find it here.

Start the program and change the following fields (those traced in red)

• Select “Arduino” as the programmer (There is no Teensy 3.2 in the list)
• Select the COM port the Teensy 3.2 is connected to
• Enter BAUD rate 19200
• Select ATmega328 as the MCU
• Select the path where the new firmware is located
• Press the Program button.

30 seconds later your QCX is flashed with the latest firmware. Have fun!