How to Update the GS4 Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) Keypad Firmware from AutomationDirect

To see the KEYPAD’s current firmware version, press the UP button down while you apply power to the drive. Looks like we currently have version 9.004. To upgrade the firmware, turn the drive OFF. Plug a standard A-B USB cable into your PC and plug the other end of the cable into the USB port on the firmware upgrade card – which we also call the 3-in-1 card. The USB provides power to do the firmware upgrade which explains why we don’t need the drive on. It won’t hurt anything if you leave the drive powered on – BUT - the Firmware upgrade won’t work. So make sure the drive is off. Connect the firmware upgrade card to the keypad using an RJ45 cable – an Ethernet cable is fine – just make sure it’s a straight through cable and NOT a crossover. Launch the GS4Soft application, skip over the connect to drive stuff – and go straight to whatever device you want to upgrade – that would be the keypad for our demo. Select the com port – which in device manager looks like this. Note that the USB to RS485 dongle has the same USB chipset so it looks the same. If I unplug the dongle, then I am left with the Firmware upgrade card which on my system is on com 8, so I put that here. Click OPEN file and go find the firmware file you want for the keypad. You can always get the most recent firmware for free at automationdirect.com, downloads. The Keypad firmware has this KPD in the file name and has a hex suffix. Looks like this one is version 9 point 5. I’m doing this video pre-release so don’t be surprised if yours has a different revision number. The dialog tell us where the file came from and that we need to hold down the up arrow and menu key while we press the Upgrade button. The green RUN light comes on while the flash memory is being erased. The other RUN led turns on when erasing is done. The dialog is telling us to hold down the Menu key to continue – you can release that when you see the green bar in the dialog start to move or when the Forward Reverse led turns green which also says programming is in process. That will take several minutes so be patient. I’m speeding up the video so we don’t have to sit here and watch a green bar move … When the programming is done, forward reverse and stop turn RED and the dialog tells you we are done. That’s it. One side note – It’s really easy to push the wrong button or miss a step or even try to load the wrong file and get things confused. If that happens, just unplug the USB cable and plug it back in – that will power cycle the firmware upgrade 3 in 1 card and get you a fresh start. Let’s see if it worked. Plug the key pad back into the drive, hold down the UP ARROW key and apply power to the drive. Sure enough, we have keypad firmware version 9.5. Perfect. Uh-oh – what happened? This flashing screen is warning us that the keypad has been modified since it was last used. Just acknowledge that by pressing the STOP button and we are good to go. The keypad is now updated and reset to factor y default. You can restore your parameters either from one of the user storage locations in the keypad – they did not get overwritten - OR from the GSoft software – you did back up your parameters to one of the keypad storage areas or via the Gsoft software before doing all of this – right? Click here to learn more about the GS4 Drive. Click here to learn more about AutomationDirect’s free support options. And click here to be notified when we publish new videos.