Firmware update needed for Intellicenter Indoor Control Panel?

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RichSiegmund

RichSiegmund

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Oct 8, 2016
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Austin, TX
I recently installed an Intellicenter and yesterday added the 522035 Indoor Control Panel Kit (WHITE faceplate).

The Panel came with the same kind of notice to update firmware, but while the Panel has a usb port and surely uses firmware I found no firmware at www.pentair.com/poolsoftwaredownloads for it.

Maybe it's unnecessary because Pentair uses the firmware in the Intellicenter to refresh the Control Panel, and that firmware is at the latest Version 1.040 – January 2020.

Anybody know if I'm missing something?
 
guinness said:
Try Intellicenter Download link, currently version 1.040 - January 2020. If the panel is connected to the internet you should get automatic updates.
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Thanks - but as I said the Intellicenter system itself is already at 1.040, my question is whether there is a different firmware needed for the control panel inside the house. The control panel certainly has a local microprocessor so it uses firmware.


Are you sure that the Intellicenter will automatically update it's own firmware? I haven't noticed that in the documentation, but yes my system is hardwired through ethernet and is always connected to the internet.
 
guinness said:
My bad, that what happens I skim read a post - when you mentioned panel I thought you meant IC panel.

The manual for the indoor panel isn't particularly enlightening. It looks like it's wired via RS-485 communication cable - does it mirror the display on the IC or does it act independently?

Click to expand...

Good point - I hadn't thought about whether the indoor panel might just be a dumb device. I just looked at the circuitry, it does have an ethernet port, USB, backup battery and debug tabs on an edge. I didn't try to track down the devices but my guess is that there is a local microcontroller that needs firmware. There is a very small daughter card that I imagine is the microcontroller. I suppose it's still possible that when powering on the controller loads whatever firmware it needs from the main panel.

The display on the indoor controller looks identical to the one in the load center as far as menus go, so I'm going to assume that you're probably right. The firmware lives in the load center, and the indoor controller just powers on by loading the firmware from the load center, and afterwards when changes are made on the touch screen they are actually updated first in the load center and then reflected on both touchscreens, load center and remote panel.

I can see why this would be a good approach, one would never want the two controllers to get out of sync, so making both screens simply reflect whatever settings are in the load center simplifies their design and avoids sync problems.

So with few facts other than educated guesses I'm going to assume there isn't any firmware in the indoor controller to worry about.
 
That's the problem squirrel - where does the firmware come from to put on the USB stick?

UPDATE: The web page from #2 says the following - so they all share the same firmware?

To install: Transfer the file to a USB memory stick. Insert the stick in the outdoor panel, indoor control panel, or wireless control panel
Click to expand...
 
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guinness said:
Yes, that's the problem squirrel - where does the firmware come from to put on the USB stick?
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Now I'm confused. It's right on the page you listed above. The direct link is

But if the existing fw is current, there's nothing to do. Also, the release notes say
version 1.040
- Fixed Multiple Expansion Panels OTA update is not working as expected
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So maybe all connected panels update together as of this latest version. Pentairese is not the easiest language to understand.
 
guinness said:
UPDATE: The web page from #2 says the following - so they all share the same firmware?
Click to expand...
There is a single package of firmware. The .pfw file is actually an archive, like a ZIP file, which you can view with 7-Zip. It's kind of interesting if you're into nerdy stuff because you can see the OS is Linux. It appears that at the time the fw is installed, the code determines which controller is being updated and extracts the right fw for that controller.
 
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