In this tutorial we’re going to flash our T-Deck Plus from LILYGO with the Loader firmware, that is able to load different images from the micro SD card and it’s source code is available at Github. This is awesome, because you can have you Meshtastic, Ripple Radios T-Deck Ultra firmware and many other apps stored on your SD card and load them as needed. Same thing is possible with the Cardputer from M5Stack, but I’ll focus on installing on T-Deck Plus in this article.
- Prepare a good quality micro SD card, with capacity 32GB as the T-Deck isn’t able to read higher capacity cards. I recommend SanDisk Extreme PRO 32GB micro SD cards, as they’re proven to be fast and reliable.
2. Go to the M5Stick Launcher Flasher Website on any Chromium-based browser (Chromium, Chrome, Edge, etc.)
3. Power off the T-Deck. While holding the middle ball button, power it on and insert a USB-C cable that is connected to your computer. Wait for about 2-3 seconds more, and then release the ball key. The T-Deck Plus should now be in bootloader mode. The screen will be all black. (You can confirm via lsusb command on Linux or in Device Manager under COM & LPT ports on Windows).
4. On the Launcher Flasher website, select “Latest Release” or “Beta Release” (whichever you prefer more) and then choose “Lilygo” under that and finally click on “T-Deck (Normal and Plus)” row.
5. Click “Connect” and select “USB JTAG/serial debug unit (COMxxx)”. Click on “INSTALL T-DECK”.
Then on “INSTALL”.
6. After “Installation Complete” window appears, don’t click on Logs and console, just power off your T-Deck and disconnect the USB-C cable and then power it back on. You should be greeted with the Loader welcome screen and be able to go over several options:
- SD menu is for installing the apps from your SD card and SD card management
- OTA menu is for downloading the apps from the M5Stack
- WUI starts the Web User Interface, where you can manage your T-Deck
- CFG is for Launcher configuration, where you can manage various Launcher settings
7. Download Meshtastic UI firmware zip with binaries from my article about flashing Meshtastic with UI on T-Deck Plus, or any newer Meshtastic UI release build from Github.
8. Download the T-Deck Ultra Firmware from the Ripple Radios website (as of writing this article in 05/2025, current version is version 6.0). The software is freemium, so you can donate any amount you’ll consider wise to keep the project running, but if you’re out of money, you don’t have to. I did, because I know how much effort writing such firmware envolves.
9. If the micro SD card isn’t brand new, and you don’t have any special data on it, or it’s just a leftover after some project on any SBC like Raspberry Pi, I highly recommend usind SD Card Formatter tool first, to format it properly and the right way. But you can always wipe the SD card from the Loader firmware itself as well.
10. Now we’re going to populate the SD card with Meshtastic and Ripple Radios T-Deck Ultra firmware. Unzip my mirror zip file of Meshtastic Fancy UI firmware or directly download just the unzipped Meshtastic firmware-t-deck-2.5.3.bfe99b2-update.bin file. Then upack the RippleQwertyGeo-TDeck-sx1262-ultra-SD-v6.0.bin and copy both to freshly formatted micro 8GB or 16GB or 32GB SD card.
11. Power on the T-Deck Plus. Go to “SD” menu and select one of the two firmwares. Select i.e. Meshtastic firmware, and click “Install”. After a while of flashing the firmware from the SD card to the ESP32-S3, the Meshtastic firmware should load. Same with Ripple Radios firmware.
12. You also have an option to upload firmware .bin files from the Flasher, after you connect it to your home WiFi. When you select “WUI” in the Flasher Loader, you have 2 options:
- Create an Access Point (AP) that you can connect to from your computer and upload the bin files from there
- Connect to your home WiFi, go to the IP address that was assigned by your router’s DHCP server and download firmware images from the internet
Huge thanks and big up goes to:
- @bmorcelli for making the Loader Firmware a reality
- Ripple Radios for creating Ripple T-Deck Ultra firmware and making it a freemium
