I recently picked up a 4007ES Hybrid from a friend of a friend for very cheap and am looking to figure out what I can do with it since it’s one of the less proprietary of the very proprietary Simplex panels.
My day job is in cybersecurity so I was able to spend some time fuzzing the panel on the network and was able to pull the job files off the panel via a hidden FTP server.
The panel is on firmware 3.05 and the ES programmer only began allowing unlicensed programming of the 4007ES in version 6 something as far as I know.
Does anyone have a more recent firmware upgrade for the panel, or would I just be better off calling my local JCI/Simplex office and forking over the money to have them program it for now?
I will give you the answer (fairly) bluntly: it is not a good idea to attempt an upgrade on this panel.
The CPUs manufactured before 2020 (pre RoHS compliance, indicated by a green PC board) are not very lenient when it comes to the upgrade process. I have seen many enthusiasts brick their panels by attempting an upgrade through USB, Ethernet, or the RS232 service port. The ‘instructions’ built into the programmer will, more than likely, brick the panel.
The failure occurs after the BootLoader has been upgraded, and the internal process that’s running on the embedded Linux fails to properly apply the MasterBin upgrade, and it will simply restart and get stuck. There is virtually no way to recover the panel if it fails. The newer CPUs (blue PC board) are smarter, and allow you to fallback to a previous version if the upgrade fails, but all CPUs with a green PC board do not have this functionality.
The ES Panel Programmer began to phase out dongle-based access sometime in Version 4 or Version 5, if memory serves.
Oh, and, good luck having JCI come to program it. I don’t think they would want to even touch a collector’s equipment, unfortunately. You can try, but I’m not sure you’d be successful.
I know of people having success with JCI flashing a pretty plain database onto the panel, just for a pretty penny.
This probably goes beyond the general knowledge out there, but there is an unpopulated JTAG header on the board. Is that of any use/is it functional if populated?
Definitely understand the caution and I’ll look into my options but without changing the firmware it’s not of much use to me, so either way I’m short on options. If I brick it I’m only out $150 so, not *too *worried but also am not looking to do something almost certainly bound to kill it.
Thank you for the advice though, didn’t know about the change in hardware around then.
The JTAG port (I believe) is probably just a general debugging port (for factory use, maybe in QC testing?) but may be functional if you soldered a connector on.
The ‘official’ methods of upgrading the panel are through the USB port (J2, standard USB 2.0), Ethernet Port (J1, standard RJ45) or Serial Service Port (P2, 10 pin IDC). I believe the ‘standard’ used by JCI is to upgrade through USB transfer, through a utility built into the programmer itself.
I think I may have some instructions for a panel upgrade, if you dare to do so. It was written by a friend of mine who did have success upgrading his, but he warns that one mistake in that process can poof the CPU. If I find them, I will send you a private message with them.