Hello!
This is a story of my struggles and how I came around to fixing them. I got myself a used (barely) Quancheng UV-K6 and after playing with it a bit, decided to flash a custom firmware. I did no research and went with what I thought was fitting firmware. Downloaded chirp and went at it. Right after the flash had failed, I bricked the radio. It did not turn on, but luckily, PTT + turning it on did put it in flash mode.
My programming cable is a cheep Baofeng wire from Aliexpress that comes with a driver CD. I tried to install the drivers on Windows 11 machine, but did not succeed. Device manager reported driver issue even after I got the official drivers from Baofeng homepage. At this point, I switched to an old laptop with Windows 10, - the Baofeng drivers were not needed. Windows automatically found the drivers when asked to do so in the device manager.
So when trying to fix it, I downloaded Chirp and tried to flash one of the seemingly original firmwares, but I do not remember the precise error message Chirp gave. Afterwards I dug up the whole internet looking for a solution, and while experimenting, I also downloaded k5prog-win software from Github. Flash attempts here with multiple firmwares all resulted with the same scenario. After plugging in the programming cable into PC, putting the radio in flash mode (PTT+turn on. At this point, the flashlight lights on and and stays on), and then plugging the cable into the radio, its port was immediately found in the k5prog-win. Then after pressing the Write Firmware and chosing the .bin file, it gave me some messages like "sending k5_hello .." and right after that port closes with message ("'COM5' closed" - your port number will change depending on which USB port you use) and then message "radio not detected". This continued no matter how many times I tried or how many firmware versions I got.
At this point, I had seen countless people suggesting to push the programming cable into the radio with un-reasonable amount of force to seat it properly. I pushed mine quite hard but did not hear the famous 'click'. I then started to inspect the connection between the cable and the radio - the Kenwood connector sat at an angle and seemingly, one of the connector housing corners was resting on the recessed rim for the radio connector slots. I took a sharp knife, trimmed the connector edges and corners, and retried to insert it - still no click.
So I decided to give it a go - no bueno. the same errors, the same result. Then out of pure spite, I kept trying and one time, I held the connector firmly pressed in the slot and specifically, the bottom half (the largest of the two prongs) and I succeeded!! The flashlight started to flash and firmware flashed successfully.
This being said - you still have to have the correct firmware version. So the setup that worked for me (your results may vary) -
- k5prog-win
- k5_py030_v1.02.01.bin
- Heavily trimmed connector plastic to remove any potential interference with the radio housing
- Fair amount of pressure on the connector during the whole flashing process.
Special thanks to u/Born_Bar_9985 for pointing out the correct firmware version!
I apologize for the long post, but I hope I've shared some details to help someone with the same issue as I did.
Footnotes:
- the k5_py030_v1.02.01.bin is located on a random google drive, so I do not know how legit or safe it is.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Quansheng/comments/1od7gj4/guide_to_unbrick_v2_bad_flash/ (First comment) - The k5prog-win kept crashing and required to be restarted multiple times, so don't give up.
- Before any flash attempts - be smart, do your homework and backup the original firmware. then again, I'm not sure if this post will be seen before the damage is already done.