Amicus 18 FTDI driver on W10?

[HenrikOlsson]

More info:
On the Proton forum I found a thread with links showing how to install unsigned driver so I followed that and was able to install the Amicus 18 serial port driver (which again is nothing other than the standard FTDI driver as far as I understand) and it shows up correctly in device manager. But when rebooting into normal mode and plugging in the Amicus 18 it again refuses to use the driver.

For reference, here's the thread on the Proton forum.

/Henrik.

[pedja089]

That is new "state of art" way to protect user from malicious drivers. Or to be honest, very good way to get more money. Because certificates have expiration date. You know, after some period drivers turn bad....
And you pay about 200-500$ per year to maintain drivers signed and to redistribute new signed driver every 1 to 3 years.
You have option to get 32bit version, and then it shouldn't disable unsigned drivers, go back to win 7, or pay to sign driver...
Even if original driver is signed, they probably changed PID and VID for Amicus, so that render driver useless.

There is one more option, but probably wont work.
You can try to manually force FTDI driver to Amicus.
1. Uninstall all drivers for Amicus.
2. When you plugin USB cancel automatic search.
3. Go to device meager right click properties, go to driver tab, click update driver
4. Let me browse option, Then select from list, or what ever is called on win10
5. Then click to have disk, select FTDI signed drives files.
6. Click what ever is needed to install it. You should get some errors that driver isn't compatible, etc...
This you may expect with all drivers stored on disc. So you need always to have new signed driver. Or at least every couple years.
I have this issue with microchip drivers for my devices. I have CDC on couple devices and just changer PID and VID to match with PID and VID in device, and that makes driver unsigned. And you also need to pay VID to USB...
Also there is some changes in CE certification for EU. So it seems that small manufacturers have no chance....
Hope that this help you.

[tumbleweed]

Even though the chip on the amicus18 board is an FT232RL, the USB PID has been changed so that it appears as an "Amicus18 Serial Port" (USB\VID_0403&PID_AC75). Once that was done it required the use of a modified INF driver file.

There is (at least was) a utility on the FTDI site called FT_PROG that would let you change the PID back to the standard FTDI PID for the FT232RL, and that would let you use the standard FTDI driver. I don't know if there are any issues with that (like a loader program looking for the old AC75 PID), but hardware-wise that should work fine.

I've only used FT_PROG on win7 so I have no idea if/how it works on win10.

[Dave]

Yes, In fact I recently purchased a few Amicus18 boards for a development program. I switched out the processor for an 18F26K22 and used the FT_PROG program from FTDI to set the PID to a default state. This however can only be done after the board is found and connected by the operating system which requires the Amicus software to be loaded on the computer you are using to do the reprogramming. I then use the PBP3 with the MCSPX boot loader for all program development. Works a treat...

[HenrikOlsson]

Thank you all for your input!
Forcing the standard FTDI USB serial port driver onto the "Amicus serial port" does "work" in that it shows up as a COM-port (instead of under "other devices") in the device manager but obviously the Amicus Loader application isn't looking for a "generic" COM port, it's looking for the "Amicus serial port" - which sucks.

In the Proton forum thread I linked to previously there appears to be a special version of the Amicus loader application (in post #8). I've registred and got my account activated but I'm not allowed to post or download so I can't try it and it doesn't really say what the purpose of that version is.

I guess since Windows now sees the board as a normal COM port using FT_Prog to get rid of the Amicus stuff all together is the best thing to do and the way forward.

Dave, are you using the standard MCSPX bootloader or the "UMC" one. I can't seem to find a prebuilt loader .hex file for either 25K20 or the 25/26K22 and I've never used the UMC one.

/Henrik.

[Dave]

Henrick, I have used the UMC Loader since it came out and have worked with David Barker on a few bug's I found in it. In fact as far as the Boot Loader goes, you have to manipulate some of the registers of the newer 16F & 18F parts before the Boot Loader will work. That is why David has allowed you to generate an .ini file to configure the Boot Load Builder for your particular processor.

[HenrikOlsson]

Thanks Dave,
Guess it's time to figure that UMC loader out, never had the need before.

/Henrik.