Help!! FOCBOX Unity / Xenith cant connect after firmware update

I was updating my xenith firmware from my phone app and my flipsky anti-spark auto turned off JUST AS it finished updating. To my understanding thats extremely fugged. Now it wont connect to my computer or my phone, of which it gives me a prompt saying “could not read firmware version” on vesc mobile. On PC it simply doesnt show up. Im quite sure ive bricked it in the dumbest most avoidable way possible. There is a single LED on when i power it up, and no magic smoke smells if that help for additional info.

I have tried looking up on the forum for how to fix this but i cant really seem to find any info. Was hoping yall might be able to help. Such a shame, i was planning to upload this new build of mine here for the first time but fate had other ideas i guess. Please help me!!!

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Not that it helps now, but why are you using a flipsky antispark instead of just using the unity switch? You can be pretty much guaranteed that any flipsky product you use is gonna end in you having a bad day one day.

If you have another vesc laying around, you can use it to try and reflash the bricked esc…

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He’s using the smart enhanced antispark switch, the good one designed by @gamer43

It has a 10 min self turn off, like the unity button also, but yea he opted to use the flipsky antispark and bridged the MOM terminals for the stock unity button

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Tbf, the timeout on the unity button is set within vesc tool and it would not have turned itself off mid-update.

In my experience, if it’s sold by flipsky, its gonna fuck you up one day :joy:

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What @glyphiks said it sounds like it’s bricked so you’ll need either another VESC or an ST-Link V2 to reflash the board with a new bootloader and firmware.

Do I have to use another Unity to reflash? Since Unity runs on VESC 4. I have a couple Focbox singles and a few 4.12

You can use any VESC. Here’s the guide:

I really appreciate all the help. I still cant seem to figure the pinout equivalents though. At this point ive just been trying different combinations. This shit is really hard to understand haha

There should be a diagram somewhere here for the unity & stormcore pinout (they’re the same design)

Just in case


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you can see the clk,io etc pins in this picture
you will have to open the focbox single too

Sorry this might sound stupid, but which are the CLK and IO pins? I saw the diagrams that were sent but i dont see any of those exact letters in any of the pin outs. Are they in short form in the diagram?

For the focbox singles:


For the unity: the black connector where the bluetooth modules is installed, see below.

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This is really helpful. Before i go ahead and blow something up, just to confirm, SWDIO= IO , SWCLK = CLK , and gnd well = gnd yes? As for the Vesc tool version ill just use the one Veddder used in his video.

Btw this is Linny’s Focbox (if it doesnt work ill owe him money) Wish me luck guys :smiling_face_with_tear:

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Thanks everyone!!! You guys just fucking saved me. Got the focbox single to flash over the firmware via swd port. Seriously, you guys saved me so much money and heartbreak. Thanks again!!!


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now make your god damn build post thats 4 years delayed

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Hell yeah, nice work. Big ups to @xsynatic for keeping all those receipts :grin:

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One of my Unity Focbox got bricked when I updated to vesc 6.00 and recovered it by reflashing the original Unity firmware using ST link then updated again, and it got bricked again. At that point, I was sure it was an issue with the vesc update, so I contacted Vedder on Discord, and he fixed the bugs. Now I’ve been running 6.02 since it came out and have had zero issues.

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