Beware of cheap underperforming clones

As of 2022 there are many badly performing clones on the market. V2/3GHz NanoVNA uses parts like ADF4350 and AD8342 which are costly and clones have been cutting costs by using salvaged or reject parts.

See official store and look for V2 Plus4/V2 Plus4 Pro versions only to avoid getting a bad clone. We have stopped selling V2.2 versions since October 2020, so all V2 hardware that are not Plus or Plus4 are not made by us and we can not guarantee performance.

NanoVNA V2 Forum

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Selecting proper firmware

Allasso 2020/10/28 07:39

Note: I asked about this on nanovna-users, and somewhere suggested it was
best asked here:

I'd like to update my firmware in hopes of correcting a problem with
nanovna-saver crashing with my device.

In the "Version" display of my vna, it says "NanoVNA V2_2"

The current firmware is git-20200617-1a9a11d

When I check the versions page:

https://nanorfe.com/nanovna-versions.html
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fnanorfe.com%2Fnanovna-versions.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFwI0RRcv5NFTiOW-vjHF8-Dzm_2w>

while all selections show 20201013, there appear to be variants as to
the files when I hover over the download links, eg,
nanovna-v2-20201013-v2_2.bin, or nanovna-v2-20201013-v2plus4.bin, the
operatives being, v2_2.bin or v2plus4.bin.

Since mine says "NanoVNA V2_2" I would guess that I should use the
v2_2.bin variant, which is the 3rd selection in the "Official"
variants section, which also says "No longer sold".

I would like to verify this with the group, as I am queezy about doing
an improper firmware update. I would also welcome any other input you
may have on the matter.

Thanks, K...

Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/28 18:09

Hello Alasso
There are in fact just 2 fw versions that you could use.. And that depends on screen size
Plus fw or plus 4 fw will not work cause you do not have a plus version hw
Hth
Greetz sigi dg9bfc

Am 28.10.2020 15:39 schrieb Allasso <kevinhowjones@gmail.com>:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/28 10:16

@Siegfried, thanks very much. So just to be VERY clear,
nanovna-v2-20201013-v2_2.bin WILL work, correct?

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 10:12 AM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/28 19:13

Small screen?? Then yes...
If you have an saa2n with 4 inch then use the 2_74 version
Greetz sigi dg9bfc

Am 28.10.2020 18:16 schrieb Allasso <kevinhowjones@gmail.com>:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/28 11:21

"If you have an saa2n with 4 inch then use the 2_74 version"

Ah yes, that is exactly what I have (though it looks nothing like the one
pictured.)

Confusing when my version screen says 2_2.

Thanks, glad I asked.

K

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 11:16 AM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/28 19:34

Ok... You did not wrote that you have an saa2n... So yes... Then you need to use the 2_74
I also have an saa2n... And modded a genuine v2 with a 4 inch lcd
So in fact they are the same besides case and connectors
Glad that i could help
Greetz sigi dg9bfc

Am 28.10.2020 19:21 schrieb Allasso <kevinhowjones@gmail.com>:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/28 11:52

Yes, I should have included that minor detail :-)

Thanks again sir.

K

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 11:37 AM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/28 20:00

You wrote that in the other thread... So guessing on my end was easy :-)
Greetz sigi dg9bfc

Am 28.10.2020 19:52 schrieb Allasso <kevinhowjones@gmail.com>:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/28 12:04

I just got mine, had a little 1.5 GHz, but really needed to be able to look
at 1900 MHz and 2.4 GHz bands. A few months back when I got my first one
1.5 was all I could find. I wondered if by now they had come up with
something with more bw, and viola! 3Ghz! Moreover 4" screen, metal case,
type N conns, better feeling buttons, this seems like a really nice
device. I hope it serves me well.

Even though this is my second, I am really just getting my feet wet with
NanoVNA (and vna in general.)

Right now I'm trying to figure out how to work around the documented issue
where these things make NanoVNA-saver crash. That is why I was looking
into firmware upgrade.

K

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 11:52 AM Allasso via groups.io <kevinhowjones=
gmail.com@groups.io> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
John O'Hare 2020/10/28 20:35

Did that image work for you? Doesn’t operate correctly for me.

J.
--

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/28 13:59

@John, I haven't attempted that yet. But your message makes me nervous :-)

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 1:38 PM John O'Hare <john@o-hare.net> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
John O'Hare 2020/10/28 21:09

Mine was delivered with 20200501 and has been easy to recover to 2020050, also 20200525.

The later images load but don’t appear to like the stored calibration file (bad magic number) and won’t permit a new calibration to be run.

j.
--

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/28 14:16

>> The later images load but don’t appear to like the stored calibration
file (bad magic number) and won’t permit a new calibration to be run.

Maybe I'll just wait until the dust settles.

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 2:10 PM John O'Hare <john@o-hare.net> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/28 22:24

Its not the fw why saver crashes...
I have a 38 pre release and that works fine with my saa2n
I guess that will be solved soon
Zarath is working on it
Greetz sigi dg9bfc

Am 28.10.2020 22:16 schrieb Allasso <kevinhowjones@gmail.com>:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/28 14:31

"Its not the fw why saver crashes...
I have a 38 pre release and that works fine with my saa2n
I guess that will be solved soon
Zarath is working on it"

Thanks. Sounds like it's better to just wait then. At least we still have
our QT :-)

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 2:28 PM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Kurt Poulsen 2020/10/29 00:16

Hi Allaso
If you use version 3.7 it will probably work
One of my friend ran into that problem
Kind regards
Kurt

Allasso 2020/10/28 16:21

Thanks Kurt, yes I installed 3.7 yesterday :-/

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 4:17 PM Kurt Poulsen <kurt@hamcom.dk> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
John O'Hare 2020/10/29 08:14

@Siegfried My issues are with the firmware on the SAA-2N I haven’t used saver yet.
May I ask how you loaded your firmware to the SAA-2N, I have used the vna_qt on mac.

I did install incorrect firmware a couple of times before attempting the correct version of the latest code. Is there perhaps an option to fully erase the chip using DFU?

Do you perhaps have the full make command line to build the SAA-2N vanilla firmware?

John.
--

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/29 20:41

Hi John

answers below

Am 29.10.2020 um 08:14 schrieb John O'Hare:
> @Siegfried My issues are with the firmware on the SAA-2N
what issuees??
> I haven’t used saver yet.
i use it a lot ... much better as vna qt but vna qt is still needed for
firmware upload
> May I ask how you loaded your firmware to the SAA-2N, I have used the vna_qt on mac.
same here (but not for mac) ... vna qt used for fw upload
>
> I did install incorrect firmware a couple of times before attempting the correct version of the latest code. Is there perhaps an option to fully erase the chip using DFU?

why do you want a full erase?? you can just uploade newest fw and be
done with it

only the calibration memories needs to be filled with some data

say 1 for 2m ... 2 for 70 cm ... 3 for 900megs ... 4 for 23 cm (or
whatever you think you may need)

>
> Do you perhaps have the full make command line to build the SAA-2N vanilla firmware?
no ... i never made such things (compile from source) ... only download
corret fw from net and upload in the device
>
> John.
> --

I hope i cold help you a bit :-)

Greetz Sigi DG9BFC

- Show quoted text -
Stephen Laurence 2020/10/30 01:01

Nanosaver crashes:

I have managed to use Nanosaver after some hassles. Actually finding it on Github is not exactly easy; I am not a software nerd

I had to reload the Cypress driver a few times, but the main cause of crashes, as soon as my Saav2N was connected, was that the vna was set to scan 20khz to 4ghz, which is my default start-up setting. Also it seems not to work with the Japanese firmware.

So now I have to reset it to sweep a conservative 2mhz to 1ghz before connection. Once connected it is mostly ok. I have even got the v2N to sweep up to 5ghz with it, although the dynamic range is pretty poor above 4ghz. Decent graphs require 10 segments for wide sweeps.

One problem I had was trying to get Kurt’s ini file for the calibration data to be recognised, so I finished typing it in, but with only 3 significant figures for the data.

The tdr display is most useful. A selection of pieces of coax joined up with sma connectors etc shows a significant blip for every sma connection, but barely visible for N connectors.

Steve L

Kurt Poulsen 2020/10/30 11:50

Hi Stephen
Use this version 0.3.7
https://github.com/zarath/nanovna-saver
and find the Binary releases by scrolling down
https://github.com/NanoVNA-Saver/nanovna-saver/releases/ use only the v0.3.7
In the NanoVNA-saver clikc on the Management then you can set the number of points in favor of Segment uses
The max frequency with reliable measurements is 3.8GHz above is not worth using.
My ini file is not to load but a mean for editing YOUR ini file. The way to do it is explained in the text file to open in a text editor, and figure out how to edit the line start numbers.
Kind regards
Kurt

Allasso 2020/10/30 04:24

>> Also it seems not to work with the Japanese firmware

How do you tell if it has Japanese firmware?

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 1:01 AM Stephen Laurence <Gaslaurence@gmail.com>
wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/30 21:57

If button press on touch screen is light green and not grey :-)

or look in config / version

if it says version ojisankoubou20201004 then its the japanese fw ... but
you shoud know it is on cause YOU had to upload that fw (i am quite sure
that you can not buy a v2 or saa2n with the ojisan fw)

so ... Alasso ... what does your version tell?? check it and we can tell
you8 what fw to use

... just tested ... saver works with ojisan fw and with "genuine" fw ...

using saver 038 rc02 just a few hours old

dg9bfc sigi

Am 30.10.2020 um 11:24 schrieb Allasso:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/30 22:15

hi kurt and hi stephen

i just tested it with last saver (38rc02) ... it works with ojisan fw
and with genuine fw

finding it is a bit tricky (see under the actions tab in github)

i reported zarath (holger) that it works fine so i hope we soon get a
new release on github (so a bit easier to find)

see here

https://github.com/NanoVNA-Saver/nanovna-saver/actions/runs/337323249

on right side you will find "artifacts" and two files (32 and 64 bit
version)

hope that helps you a bit

if saver crashes on first start .. try another time

no idea why it crashed first time .. maybe because i was using saver
with the genuine fw and on next start using ojisan fw ... bu anyway ..
saver 38rc02 works with both fw versions

greez sigi dg9bfc


Am 30.10.2020 um 10:50 schrieb Kurt Poulsen:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/30 16:31

Siegfried, light green on touch.

Version: git-20200617-1a9a11d

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 2:57 PM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/30 16:32

..That is the firmware it shipped with. I've never changed it.

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 2:57 PM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/10/31 15:21

ok alasso ... you have a very old fw and you should upload a newer one

upgrading is super easy

dg9bfc sigi


Am 30.10.2020 um 23:31 schrieb Allasso:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/10/31 18:48

Thanks Sigi,

>> ok alasso ... you have a very old fw and you should upload a newer one

Assuming 20200617 in the version number reflects the date...

4 1/2 months is "very old"?

On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 8:21 AM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/11/01 05:06

YESS IT IS :-)

Am 01.11.2020 02:48 schrieb Allasso <kevinhowjones@gmail.com>:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/11/01 10:16

Sigi:

"If button press on touch screen is light green and not grey :-)

"or look in config / version

"if it says version ojisankoubou20201004 then its the japanese fw ... but
you shoud know it is on cause YOU had to upload that fw (i am quite sure
that you can not buy a v2 or saa2n with the ojisan fw)"

So button press is light green (Japanese if I understand you correctly) but
my fw version is not ojisan (not Japanese.) So which is it?

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 2:57 PM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/11/03 04:40

Arrrrggg!!! So I updated my fw to 2_74 like Sigi suggested (since my unit
has 4" screen). Now I cannot make any changes from the menu. I can open
the menu, but when I touch options in the menu, they either:

Just close the menu and nothing happens
Don't close menu and nothing happens
On some options it will go into next menu level, (but do nothing else) and
on some options it won't.

So I try to calibrate screen as was suggested, but when I touch calibrate
-> touch cal, but again the menu just closes and nothing else happens.

When I touch calibrate -> version, instead of showing me version
information, it opens another menu which gives option of "reset and enter
dfu", or <-cancel. Touching "reset and enter dfu" again does nothing, and
touching cancel will close the screen, but I remain stuck on that menu
level. I can only clear it by restarting.

If I touch calibrate -> ->dfu, it displays the version screen (seems to be
the only option that doesn't just do "nothing"), which shows me I have fw
git-20201013-32077fd installed.

I am leary of just trying other fw versions without knowing what I'm doing.

Help!

On Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 3:15 PM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Karl Heinz Kremer 2020/11/03 06:49

Use the hardware buttons to navigate the menu. Until the screen is calibrated, you will not be able to use the touchscreen at all, it’s too far off.

Karl Heinz - K5KHK

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/11/03 04:59

Ahhhhh, thank you! Buttons! Yes, try the buttons! Sorry I panicked :-)

(you can see how familiar I am with using the nanovna in local mode.)


On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 4:49 AM Karl Heinz Kremer <khk@khk.net> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/11/03 06:05

So now after my panic attack I've had a chance to check it out on
nanovna-saver (the whole reason I was looking into upgrading fw was because
it would crash.)

With the new firmware and upgrading to saver 3.8 which just came out, so
far it seems to be working fine. It did crash the very first time I tried
to connect, but after that it was fine. (I remembered reading somewhere
else that someone had the same sequence. They gave some reason why they
thought it did that but I don't recall now what it was.)

I did notice that on the 3.8 install it warns that it will crash with
Japanese fw.

So I'll continue using saver and report if there are any other problems.

Thanks for all the help getting me through this. And yes, upgrading the fw
with qt is unbelievably easy. I found lots of web pages and videos that
make it seem really hard, maybe they are just outdated (though some were
from this year) but following the simple instructions on the downloads page
(https://nanorfe.com/nanovna-versions.html) was all I needed.

On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 4:41 AM Allasso via groups.io <kevinhowjones=
gmail.com@groups.io> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/11/03 15:10

saver 38 works with genuine fw and with the japanese fw (i have two
units and for test such things i have one with ojisan fw)

... and ... no panic :-)

greetz sigi dg9bfc

Am 03.11.2020 um 13:05 schrieb Allasso:

- Show quoted text -
Mike Wyatt 2020/11/14 10:23

Hello,

I'm new to the NanoVNA and SAA-2N. Prior to upgrading to firmware version 2.74, I was able to use NanoVNA-QT and NanoVNA-Saver (3.7) although did have some issue with Saver crashing somewhat often, although QT has been very stable. After the 2.74 NanoVNA upgrade Saver would no longer operate and I upgraded Saver to version 3.8 and still having problems with it crashing, reporting:

Settings: /Users/mawyatt/.config/NanoVNASaver/NanoVNASaver.ini
2020-11-14 13:01:59,611 - NanoVNASaver.Hardware.NanoVNA_V2 - ERROR - Timeout reading version registers
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/mawyatt/nanovna-saver/NanoVNASaver/NanoVNASaver.py", line 516, in serialButtonClick
self.connect_device()
File "/Users/mawyatt/nanovna-saver/NanoVNASaver/NanoVNASaver.py", line 538, in connect_device
self.vna = get_VNA(self.interface)
File "/Users/mawyatt/nanovna-saver/NanoVNASaver/Hardware/Hardware.py", line 88, in get_VNA
return NanoVNA_V2(iface)
File "/Users/mawyatt/nanovna-saver/NanoVNASaver/Hardware/NanoVNA_V2.py", line 67, in __init__
super().__init__(iface)
File "/Users/mawyatt/nanovna-saver/NanoVNASaver/Hardware/VNA.py", line 62, in __init__
self.read_features()
File "/Users/mawyatt/nanovna-saver/NanoVNASaver/Hardware/NanoVNA_V2.py", line 97, in read_features
if self.version <= Version("1.0.1"):
File "/Users/mawyatt/nanovna-saver/NanoVNASaver/Version.py", line 60, in __ge__
return self > other or self == other
File "/Users/mawyatt/nanovna-saver/NanoVNASaver/Version.py", line 48, in __gt__
l, r = self.data, other.data
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'data'
Abort trap: 6


I'm using an older Mac with OS High Sierra V 10.13.6.

I'm sure that I've overlooked something, but not being a guru not sure what I've missed. Any help/guidance is greatly appreciated.

Best,

Mike

Mike Wyatt 2020/11/14 16:12

With the help of Siegfried I been able to get the NanoVNA SAA-2N with 2.74 firmware update back to working with Nano-Saver 3.8.

Nothing I tried seemed to work so used the "reset all” command and this worked!!

I need to spend more time but so far so good!!

Thanks so much for your help Siegfried, I really appreciate this!!

Best,

Allasso 2020/11/17 12:56

"With the new firmware and upgrading to saver 3.8 which just came out, so
far it seems to be working fine. It did crash the very first time I tried
to connect, but after that it was fine. (I remembered reading somewhere
else that someone had the same sequence. They gave some reason why they
thought it did that but I don't recall now what it was.)

"So I'll continue using saver and report if there are any other problems."

Well, it appears I'm still having problems with it crashing. Nothing
changed, it just won't connect to the device without crashing now.

Allasso 2020/11/17 13:00

(Hmm, don't know why this started a new thread instead of continuing on the
old one.)

On Tue, Nov 17, 2020 at 12:57 PM Allasso via groups.io <kevinhowjones=
gmail.com@groups.io> wrote:

- Show quoted text -
Siegfried Jackstien 2020/11/17 21:45

you have to switch avg to "none" in the device and save that in slot 0

if you (as example) set avg to x5 then the soft asks for 100 points but
gets 20 and crashes with timeout

dg9bfc sigi

Am 17.11.2020 um 19:56 schrieb Allasso:

- Show quoted text -
Allasso 2020/11/17 15:57

I checked and avg was set to "none". Nonetheless, I then selected "save",
(which btw just returns to the screen, there are no slots that appear.)
After this I reconnected to Saver, and it didn't crash this time. However,
results after cal were "wild". After rebooting the vna and reconnecting,
everything seemed to work fine; did not crash, was able to cal, readings
looked as expected. In essence, I still have found nothing conclusive as
to why it crashes sometimes, and not others.

It just seems like there is still a lot of fiddling to be done to get this
to not crash on Saver, including the suggestion you made. Thus personally
I have yet to give it a "no longer crashes on Saver" stamp. Every time I
fire it up on QT, everything just works.

On Tue, Nov 17, 2020 at 2:45 PM Siegfried Jackstien <
siegfried.jackstien@freenet.de> wrote:

- Show quoted text -

To reply to this topic, join https://groups.io/g/NanoVNAV2