Installing the Kingmaxsail winch servo (SW6114MD) programmer

[Johannes JonesParticipant @johannesjones12331]

Missing setup.ini file

[Johannes JonesParticipant @johannesjones12331]

Hi.

I own several Kingmax SW6114MD sail winch servos and I've just bought a programmer to set the number of turns the drum makes. My problem is that, having installed the relevant software, I get a message telling me that 'setup.ini' is missing.

I've emailed the company (The Component Shop) from which I bought the programmer asking them if they can shed any light on this requirement, but have as yet heard nothing (early days), but I was wondering if anybody has bought the same programmer and got it to work. If so, I'd be very interested in how anyone managed it.

Thanks,

John Jones

[Dave Cooper 6Participant @davecooper6]

Hi John,

Firstly, I'm surprised the 'programmer' doesn't come supplied with firmware pre-installed (Sale of Goods Act – goods must be fit for purpose etc….). These days, separate ".ini" files is very 'old school' now.

However, back to practicalities, it might be worth doing a search on-line to see if there is one available on the internet. Quite often they are simple "Word" or "Wordpad" files which just allow you to put in certain parameters.

Good hunting,

Dave

[Dave ReedParticipant @davereed72029]

Hi JJ,

I took a quick look at the manual on Component Shop and it looks quite old, typical of the Windows 98 / XP era. It may not work on newer versions. However, I learned years ago that in cases like this you can sometimes find what you need from another supplier (Software link about half way down page listed below). It does have a setup.ini in the file. WARNING – make sure that your antivirus software is up to date if you download it, my antivirus issued a warning but that could be because it's a compressed file.

https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32921566725.html

Good luck

Dave

[Johannes JonesParticipant @johannesjones12331]

Hi Dave and Dave,

And thanks for replying. The Component Shop has now sent me 2 missing files; a .sys file and a .dll file. Once we'd figured out how to circumvent Google's ban on sending both types of file, everything worked fine, although I have yet to reprogram a servo (don't want to reprogram the servos I've already got as they're all in models that are working just fine as they are and i don't want to disturb the setups), I've got a couple of these servos arriving today, so I'll try programming those.

I had already found the .zip file that you spotted on Aliexpress; I found it on the Kingmax servo website. I chickened out of trying these: the .zip file contains about 4 different iterations of the same app, although none of them appeared to have all the necessary files. The setup.ini file references several files that aren't included in the .zip file.

I considered trying to write my own setup.ini file, but there were a couple of lines in the one in the .zip file that i didn't understand, so I decided against and just pinned my hopes on The Component Shop coming up trumps.

FWIW, it looks as if this app (which is a Windows app) also works in Linux, which is what I mainly use. Specifically, I run Ubuntu with Wine (an emulator, although Wine stands for Wine is not an emulator, but I don't know what else to call it). If anybody's interested, I'll report back on this once the new servos arrive.

Again, thanks for your input,

John

[Johannes JonesParticipant @johannesjones12331]

Sorry, Wine is a Windows emulator which allows the user to run some (quite a few) Windows apps and games. It works very well.

John

[Dave Cooper 6Participant @davecooper6]

Hi again JJ,

Looks like you may be on the road to success there….

I'm interested to know how you get on with any Linux variant(s) as I'm planning a little Arduino project along these lines for next winter. "Wine" looks as if it could be useful. (Arduino code is based on C and C++ incidentally). The project is for a randomly rotating gun turret on a RAF-style fast launch.

Cheers for now,

Dave

[Johannes JonesParticipant @johannesjones12331]

Hi,

I've been using Linux for about 20 years now, possibly longer. I've tried a lot of different distros, but for me the most reliable and generally usable version is Ubuntu. My only criticism has always been the colour scheme, but that has improved considerably over the years. If you're interested in looking at lots of different distros, I recommend the DistroWatch website.

My interests lie mainly in electronics, and with Wine, I've been able to use my favourite simulator (LTSpice XVII) and also my favourite circuit drawing and pcb designing app. The Wine HQ website has list of which apps run perfectly, or mostly or partly. There are also several apps intended to make Wine more usable. I personally haven't found these very useful, but YMMV.

My main reason for moving from Windows to Ubuntu was and is Microsoft's high-handed attitude towards its users. It's getting worse, with users being almost forced to use Microsoft products like Bing instead of Google, for example. There are other examples, but as I use Windows as little as possible, I can't remember the details.

Going back to my original query, just so you know, I still haven't been able to get the programmer to work and I now have 2 completely dead winch servos. I suspect that this might be due to the EEPROM in each case having been erased, but not reprogrammed. If I can't get the programmer to work, I'll send the servos back to The Component Shop so that they can reprogram them. Hopefully. So I'm not out of the woods yet. I'm currently attempting to write my own setup.ini file to install USBXpressinstaller.exe. Not there yet. I'm not too hot on software and firmware. I was an electronics technician before i retired, and along with many other products, I spent a couple of years debugging faulty PC motherboards. That I can (or could once upon a time 20+ years ago) manage. But code? No, thanks.

Not being able to use the programmer isn't the end of the world; the RC set that I've been using for about a year now (Flysky FS-i6) allows you to reduce the servo travel anywhere from max to zero, should you so desire, and it proved to be very straightforward to set my winches to the requisite number of drum rotations.

I hope I've given you enough information to work with regarding Linux. You can have hours of fun burning a distro onto a DVD, installing it and trying it out. Incidentally, provided Windows was installed first, you can run a dual boot system with Linux; i.e. you can select from a menu which OS you want to use. I can't remember if this is true for all distros, but it's certainly true for Ubuntu and its many variants.

Good luck,

JJ (I like that so I think I'll start using it. Thanks!)

[Dave ReedParticipant @davereed72029]

Hi JJ,

Some time ago I changed jobs and someone at the new place noticed my initials and I was known as "Doctor" for about 5 years!

A bit off topic but….

I have a home built PVR which used to run on Windows XP (Media Centre Edition). Years ago after XP was retired, I tried converting to Ubuntu but as I expected had trouble trying to find drivers for the (Hauppauge I think) TV card.

As a long term user, any hints / tips on drivers for odd devices? I know there are better PVR options out there but other challenges await….

Dave

Edited By Dave Reed on 25/08/2023 13:37:06

[Johannes JonesParticipant @johannesjones12331]

Sorry doctor, I can't really help you regarding drivers for odd devices; I'm struggling with that very same problem.

Generally speaking, Ubuntu (and most other distros) have a far more comprehensive library of drivers than Windows did, last time I tried. I don't have any unusual devices for which i need drivers.

Quite a few device manufacturers do supply Linux drivers or even Ubuntu drivers. Unfortunately, I haven't often succeeded in installing them. As I said in my last post, this isn't really my area of expertise. Not even sure I've still got any areas of expertise, to be honest.

If you can't make Ubuntu work for you, then i doubt if you'll have any luck with any other distro; I know it's not at the top of the Distrowatch chart, but last time I tried a few different distros, Ubuntu was still far and away the easiest to use.

That said, there will be quite a steep learning curve initially.

I can only wish you better luck than I'm having right now.

JJ

[Johannes JonesParticipant @johannesjones12331]

Just one more thing; an experienced Linux user will seek out a list of devices that are compatible with their distro before buying any device. Buying a device without checking for compatibility will only lead to many hours of frustration. I'm very familiar with this; I bought an expensive gaming laptop without checking and I subsequently discovered (after much buggering around) that it's completely incompatible with Linux. This is why I still have a Windows computer.

JJ

[Johannes JonesParticipant @johannesjones12331]

Good news! After a lot of mucking about, the problem turned out to be that the programmer needed a driver which was provided through the usual updating operation and including an optional update. Got a lot of help from Kyle at The Component Shop.

Thanks for your help, Dave and Dave.

Cheers,

JJ

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