This procedure will set up your KL25Z with the Pinscape firmware.
If you have any other KL25Z's plugged in to your system other than the one that you want to set up, this would be a good time to unplug them! We don't want any confusion over which one we're going to initialize.
Before we begin, is this a new, factory-fresh KL25Z that you just took out of the box, or have you installed Pinscape on this KL25Z before?
Great, that makes this easier. We only have to copy the firmware onto the device.
For a brand new KL25Z, we might have to update the core "boot loader" firmware before we can install Pinscape. Let's check your KL25Z to find out if this is necessary.
Please plug a USB cable into the programming port on the new KL25Z as shown at right, and plug the other end into a USB port on your PC.
We'll now walk you through the process of updating the boot loader firmware on your KL25Z. This is a one-time procedure that you'll never have to repeat in the future for this device, no matter how many times you want to reinstall the Pinscape software.
The whole point of this update is that the old factory firmware isn't compatible with modern Windows versions. The update will permanently fix the problem for this unit, but it creates a Catch-22 if you're using Windows 8 or later...
Warning!
This procedure will fail on Windows 8 OR LATER. It won't work on ANY LATER VERSIONS:
Windows 8 - FAIL
Windows 8.1 - FAIL
Windows 10 - FAIL
Anything else later than Windows 7 - FAIL
You must perform these steps using Windows 7 or earlier: XP, Vista, or Windows 7 will work, and only these versions will work. This is due to a bug/limitation in the KL25Z factory firmware.
After the upgrade, your KL25Z will work on all Windows versions.
To upgrade the factory firmware, follow these steps:
If any of this doesn't match what you see, the update might not have worked. If you attempted the upgrade from Windows 8 or higher, that's probably the problem. The original factory firmware is incompatible with Windows 8-10 and will fail silently and mysteriously (with no error messages) on these systems. If you did the update from Windows 7 or earlier and it still didn't work, it's possible that the procedures have changed since this writing. Try looking for instructions (.txt and/or .pdf files) in the downloaded ZIP to see if there's any information on new procedures.
We're now ready to proceed to the next step, which is to install the Pinscape Controller software onto the KL25Z.
Important! In the future, DON'T press or hold the Reset button while plugging in the KL25Z. Doing so triggers the boot loader update process, which you've now finished! This normally won't ever have to be repeated for the same card.