Schematic

[chris31]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

Does anyone know if PICs support Flash-lock? On AVR chips you can set certain fuses on the chip (think configurable parameters in the chips hardware) to lock down the Flash and EEPROM so it's read-only, write-only or even neither, necessitating the need to directly modify the Flash/EEPROM or use a bootloader.

Do PICs support this? If not, or if its not enabled by chance, you can try to do a read-back of both chips Flash to get an idea of what they're doing. Of course IFI might show up on your doorstep with one of those MIB flashy-things...

I beilive some PICs have it but not all. I am not completely sure but I have heard of people locking down some bits so they cant be changed.

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

I'm wondering if IFI has built any security into their controllers. I'm pretty sure the two processors are connected via SPI, so a re flash of both will give you two processors to play around with. It may be hard to check that without bricking the controller though.

I wouldnt feel to back about bricking them if i could buy the vex controller seprately since it wouldnt be to expensive. But I cant find em online or on ebay.