Today the fairies brought me a Foxeer Legend 1 HD camera. After reading the relevant thread on rcgroups, I decided to upgrade the firmware from 1.8 (which it shipped with) to version 2.0 since the latest 2.1 is reported to have an exposure bug. Note that version 2.0 and 2.1 firmware is not currently available on the Foxeer support page; I got the V2 firmware here along with the V2 Windows configuration GUI.
As an engineer I like to fiddle, so I ran the GUI and tried to change some of the settings on the “Default” profile. However on inspecting the contents of the camera.conf file in the root directory of the camera’s SD card (it’s an ASCII text file that can be opened with Notepad), I saw that my settings had not changed; and when I exited from and then restarted the configuration GUI the changes had been reverted, much to my frustration!
So to avoid similar frustrations, and because I find written instructions more useful than YouTube videos, this is how to configure a Legend 1 running V2 firmware:
- Install a suitable Micro SD card in the Legend 1. Note that it is installed upside-down, with the copper pads of the SD Card facing up (towards the side of the camera that has the power and record buttons).
- Connect the Legend 1 to your PC using the supplied USB cable.
- Run the configuration GUI.
- Click the “New Profile” button on the top right of the GUI. You have to create a new profile because you can’t make permanent changes to the “Default” profile.
- In the “Input Name” dialogue that pops up, give the profile a name and click the “OK” button which is on the bottom left of the dialogue – I mention this because on one occasion for some reason the button labels appeared in Chinese.
- The new profile should appear and be selected (highlighted) in the text box at the top of the GUI immediately above the “Foxeer” branding. If it is not selected then you can click on it to select it.
- Note that this has not created a new profile on the camera. The profile is created on your local PC.
- Make the changes you want in the various tabs of the profile.
- At the top left of the GUI there is a table with columns “Device”, “Label”, “Description” and “Version”. If you have multiple entries, then select the one that has a version number in the “Version” column (mine says “FW_VER:FOXEER-V2.0,FW_DATE:20160301” although yours may differ).
- Click the “Application” button at the top right of the GUI. This takes the settings from the currently selected (local) profile, and uploads them to the camera – I guess the label should be “Apply” not “Application”.
- You should see a dialog that says “Setting Ok, Please remove cable” and dismisses itself after a few seconds.
- The settings have been applied and you can now disconnect the camera from the PC.
- You don’t need to do anything to save the (local) profile you created. Profiles other than the default appear to be saved on the PC (but not on the camera) automatically.
When making future updates, just select the new profile you created and use it as a basis. This is important since the configuration GUI does not appear to load the current configuration settings from the camera, so if you don’t use the profile you created, previous changes you made will be lost.
Postscript: Version 2.0 keeps on hanging up, especially when connecting to the computer via USB.So now I have installed 2.1, which is available fromĀ https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ofkvldw2r1kwvw/FOXEER_FWUPDATE_V2.1_CARD.zip?dl=0. My first video with 2.1 firmware does not seem to have any exposure problems, despite the sun being in frame at times. Unfortunately the camera still hangs up with V2.1 firmware, although perhaps not as often. Not recommended for this reason.