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CH341a reader

Disclaimer : We do not support pirating Dim, TamaSmaCard, Vital bracelet or Tamagotchi Smart data. The above item does not contain any code or images from Bandai. Seller will not be responsible for users application.

Sample video for CH341a produced by Mint Maker

Introduction

On 13th March 2021, Vital bracelet (VB) was launched and Bandai introduced the Dim card to expand the possibility of having different Digimon data onto the a single VB. This has reduced the need of buying multiple devices like in the past for the case of Vpet or Digivice.

Bandai limited that every Dim can be bind to only one unit of 1st generation of VB, so if users Dim is faulty or their VB is spoilt, they were required to purchase a new set of Dim or even with a VB so that they can be able to play with it again. Dim is required to be inserted into VB, when Digimon is downloaded from VB lab (android and iOS) back to VB. Some users were facing issue as Dim was rejected by the VB and error message was popping out on VB during the process, thus, fail to transfer the Digimon back to the VB. The reason behind is the error in the Dim and a reset is required to ensure the Dim is back to factory setting which can be accepted by VB again.

Coming forward, Bandai has release a second generation VB that promised to allow Dim to be having 3 time download onto VB. However, many users are still expecting some Dim failure issues or even the random hanging issue on GP dim due to Bandai coded the dim wrongly. Therefore, a tools that is able to reset, backup, patch and recover dim is desired.

Current public approach

On April 2021, user 上司幾太 from YouTube released that Ch341a programmer is able to used for reset, backup, patch and recover dim. The CH341a reader is a classic EEPROM programmer that have been used for the micro chip. The user has also provided a newly compile Asprogrammer (software for Window) to fit the use of Dim.

One of the setup of CH341a by referring the tutorial by 上司幾太

One month after the youtube video released, Mrblinky has released a simplified version of software (software for Window) specially for CH341a programmers to reduce the friction of using the programmer.

The soldering setup was good as it fulfilled the desired of many users, despite that, the setup was required soldering skills and some basic electronic knowledge. Another drawback was the voltage regulator on Ch341a was not wired correctly in the circuit design, the output and input are measured at 5.0v. The current software are good enough on the Window side, however there is still lack of support on android and Mac. Hopefully we can see more developer starting to support for those platforms.

Our approach

To fill the gap, we had redesign CH341a circuit and below is the outcome. The objective is to reduce the size of the hardware while ensuring the voltage of the programmer is suitable for our application at 3.3v. The final product should be plug and play (without the need of soldering or assembly). Below is the photo of the redesign circuit and the casing design.

The green color CH341a is available for sale and the black color version is on the way for sale. Both the black and green are comparable in term of usability.