First flash
From sealed CrowPanel to a booting CANShift dashboard — about five minutes.
The flasher is part of the tuner, at /firmware. It walks three stages — Device → Firmware → Flash — reusing the same Web Serial connection the tuner already opened. There is no separate flasher app to install.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”- Cable
- USB-C, data — not a charge-only cable
- Driver
- CH340 driver installed (macOS bundles it; Windows + Linux usually too)
- Port name
macOS:
/dev/cu.usbserial-*· Linux:/dev/ttyUSB0· Windows:COMx- Other monitors
- Close any open serial monitor — only one process can hold the port
Walk-through
Section titled “Walk-through”-
Plug the screen into your computer over USB-C. A blue power LED should come on; the panel itself stays dark until firmware is on it.
-
Open Tuner → Firmware. The page loads in under a second from Vercel’s edge. You should see three numbered cards: Device, Firmware, Flash.
-
Click Connect device. The browser prompts you to pick a serial port. On most ESP32-WROOM boards the entry reads
USB JTAG/serial debug unitorcu.usbserial-303A. Pick it and confirm. -
Choose a release. The dropdown defaults to the latest stable build from GitHub Releases. Pre-release / beta is one click away if you’re tracking in-flight features. Local
.binis for developers building from source. -
Hit Flash. The wizard erases the flash, writes the firmware, verifies the checksum, then reboots into the new image. Total time: ~30 seconds for a stable release on a USB 2.0 host.
What you should see
Section titled “What you should see”| Phase | Visible | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Erase | “Erasing flash…” with a determinate progress bar | ~3 s |
| Write | “Writing 0x10000…” climbing through the image | ~20 s |
| Verify | Checksum compare, no progress bar | ~3 s |
| Boot | Screen comes alive: red CANShift splash + version | within ~2 s of reset |
| Ready | Splash holds for 2 s, then your default page appears | total ~30 s |
The 2-second splash hold is intentional — it gives you time to read the firmware version. The dash is otherwise fully booted by then.
It hung at “Writing 0x…”
Section titled “It hung at “Writing 0x…””The most common cause is the cable. Charge-only USB-C cables look identical to data cables and will pass enough current to power the board but won’t enumerate. Swap cables and retry.
If the cable is fine, the host may have stolen the port. Close any open pio device monitor, screen, or minicom and reconnect.
The splash appears but the bar stalls
Section titled “The splash appears but the bar stalls”That’s a heap problem, not a flash problem — the firmware is on the device and trying to boot. See Boot diagnostics for the failure dictionary and how to read the [BOOT] markers on the serial line.
The screen stays black after a successful flash
Section titled “The screen stays black after a successful flash”The flash succeeded but the panel never lights up. Check the SPI wiring — the reference build expects MOSI=13, MISO=12, SCLK=14, CS=15, DC=2, BL=27. Full table on Pinout.
If the panel stays dark but the serial logs print [BOOT] Ready cleanly, the dash is alive — the fault is at the LovyanGFX layer. Capture the boot log and open an issue.
You have a booting dash. Now point it at your ECU: Configure with the Tuner.