My work involves interacting with legacy hardware that uses serial ports. I often have to monitor more than one serial line, and for the purpose I have a couple of the common USB serial adaptors. When I connect both of them to the same (Windows 10) machine, irregularities show up. Both ports show up in device manager, but only the first one that I plug in to the USB connector works. The other one indicates port not open when I try to send data via RealTerm.
I have also seen the situation where when I plug the second adaptor in, its port comes up, but the one for the other adaptor disappears. Does anyone know a way that two devices can happily coexist on the one machine? Thanks in advance.
Just ion case this helps anyone in the future......
The problem seems to be caused by the fact that one of the adaptors was coming in via a (powered) USB hub. When I liberated another native port on the machine so I could host both serial adaptors directly, everything worked fine.
Not worth hunting the cause down, a solution is at hand.
Related
I'm using my computer remotely and have an Arduino Every attached to a powered USB 3.0 hub. Anyway, the Arduino is part of a hardware tool that does some nice things for me. I communicate with it through the COM port.
The problem is that sometimes, after several days or even weeks, the Arduino's COM port just disappears. Is there some way to recover that COM port without physically unplugging it?
Sometimes restarting the computer works, but since the Arduino is plugged into a Powered USB Hub, it doesn't lose its power during a computer reset, so it doesn't reset itself and the COM port doesn't show up.
This used to happen frequently when I was using Arduino Nano knock-offs. I changed over to using Genuine Arduino Every devices and it hasn't been a problem for the last couple months. However, I'm now seeing it happen again.
Does anybody have a solution for this problem, or is this just something that happens from time to time with an Arduino when its connected for weeks/months at a time?
So, I replaced all usages of String with char[] and the problem still persisted.
I finally went online and purchased an internal PCI-E USB expansion card with 7 ports. I started using that 2 weeks ago and haven't seen the problem since. The other benefit to the internal card is that when I reboot the computer, the card reboots and forces a disconnect/reconnect of all COM ports.
I guess there was just something about having an external USB Hub that was causing the problems in the first place and the internal card was much more stable.
UPDATE - After week 3, I lost communication with a couple of my Nano Every devices. Unplugging and replugging them in fixes the problem, but I need them to NOT have that problem again. I guess the internal PCI-E Usb Hub didn't solve the problem. Maybe if I plug the Every's directly into the Computers standard USB ports that might help. I'll give that a try...
UPDATE 2 - I ended up purchasing a couple wifi wall plugs. Now, I can remotely unplug my computer and remotely unplug the USB Hub Power. I just 'Shut Down' my computer remotely and then remotely power it off for a few minutes and power off the USB hub for a few minutes. I then power up the computer (I have it's BIOS set to auto boot on power-cycle) and after it boots up, I power up the USB HUB and get all devices recognized again. Sometimes, I can just power-cycle the USB HUB to get the COM Ports visible again. It's a pain, but unless somebody comes up with a better idea, that's what I'm goin' with...
I have a Microsoft Surface Book that I've dual booted Linux Mint on. I'm writing a program that needs to read in data from a serial port, but my serial ports don't seem to be working. The behavior is consistent across Mint and Windows (Testing done through Cygwin). It gets a bit of data the first 2-5 seconds that the device is plugged in (viewing the data through screen, same thing happens if I just use pyserial to print data incoming from serial port), then nothing.
What could be happening? I think I've isolated the problem to the serial ports - the Surface Book has 2 USB ports and the same thing happens on both of them, and I've tested the hardware that I'm plugging into it on 2 other computers (One Linux and one Mac OS), and it works fine on both of those.
Your MS Surface, seemingly, has a yellow triangle exclamation mark icon (over the adapter icon) without any driver to install/download. And properties in the device status box window say This device cannot start. (Code 10) or A device which does not exist was specified. Right?
If it's so you should wait for an update from MS. It's notorious problem.
I ended up getting the computer replaced on warranty for an unrelated issue months later, and what do you know, on the new computer the serial ports work fine. That indicates to me some sort of hardware problem, given that the issue persisted across OS's.
maybe this will help:
see Arduino examples for serial port communication - search google:
arduino serial c++
arduino serial c#
arduino serial c++ linux
the point is to open port properly you need to open a file, not a port. not with usual c - assembly write to port code.
another option you are using an unintentionally bought fake USB to serial cable with a Fake PL2303 chip
then you need to install the old version of the driver.
search in google:
Fake PL2303 + your os name:
install driver Fake PL2303 windows 10
another option is maybe it conserves energy and closes the port because it feels it is unused.
in windows> device manager,> properties of a device - usually USB root hub > power management - allow the computer to turn off this device to save power - uncheck it.
https://superuser.com/questions/408683/why-my-usb-mouse-gets-suspended-after-3-seconds-of-inactivity
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/usbcoreblog/2013/11/08/help-after-installing-windows-8-1-my-usb-device-doesnt-charge-or-it-disconnects-and-reconnects-frequently/
also, you could look in windows events - to see what happens. usually, failures like this are registered in the events log.
an unlikely option is it consumes too much current, like a short circuit. and the device protection circuit shuts the chip off. also probably it does not have such circuit. one possibility is to try with an external powered hub.
the most probable of these is the power saving mechanism
I was experiencing the same problem - came across the solution on another site. The USB 3 ports on Surface Book aren't compatible with something or other to do with Com Port but running the device through a cheap USB hub solved my problem straight away and it was instantly recognised by the Arduino IDE
I have 16 Arduinos that are in very tight spaces and hard to get to when I need to reprogram them with my FTDI cable. I would like to have or create some sort of centralized place where I can connect my FTDI cable, make some sort of selection (switch of some sort), which will then connect the pins my cable is on to the selected arduino.
Does anyone have any thoughts on how this can be accomplished? I've toyed with transistors, but that takes a lot of them and didn't quite work.
Are there any premade solutions that are out there that I have yet to find?
Thanks very much!
Here is a thought! TCP to Serial.
Sound complicated.
Not really.
Note from AVRDUDE's manual the following
For programmers that attach to a serial port using some kind of higher
level protocol (as opposed to bit-bang style programmers), port can be
specified as net:host:port. In this case, instead of trying to open a
local device, a TCP network connection to (TCP) port on host is
established. The remote endpoint is assumed to be a terminal or
console server that connects the network stream to a local serial port
where the actual programmer has been attached to. The port is assumed
to be properly configured, for example using a transparent 8-bit data
connection without parity at 115200 Baud for a STK500.
With this, One could place your Arduino's behind your choice of TCP to Serial Server. Which is available in several forms. Cisco has a gang TS (but that is expensive, unless used). lantronix (and others have single end point devices. But then for Linux, there is "Net2Ser" which can serve up all your ttyS (aka Serial/COM ports).
With the later you could use a raspberry or TP-Link TL-WR703N (
In the latest IDE 1.5.6r2 add one entry for each TCP-to-Serial Port to ./Arduino/hardware/arduino/avr/programmers.txt file. While replacing the IP and Port with corresponding values.
TCP2001.name=TCP 2001
TCP2001.communication=serial
TCP2001.protocol=stk500v1
TCP2001.program.protocol=stk500v1
TCP2001.program.tool=avrdude
TCP2001.program.extra_params=-Pnet:192.168.1.100:2001
TCP2002.name=TCP 2002
TCP2002.communication=serial
TCP2002.protocol=stk500v1
TCP2002.program.protocol=stk500v1
TCP2002.program.tool=avrdude
TCP2002.program.extra_params=-Pnet:192.168.1.100:2002
...
Additionally change "protocol" to "upload.protocol" the following line in ./Arduino/hardware/arduino/avr/platform.txt
tools.avrdude.program.pattern="{cmd.path}" "-C{config.path}" {program.verbose} -p{build.mcu} -c{protocol} {program.extra_params} "-Uflash:w:{build.path}/{build.project_name}.hex:i"
to
tools.avrdude.program.pattern="{cmd.path}" "-C{config.path}" {program.verbose} -p{build.mcu} -c{upload.protocol} {program.extra_params} "-Uflash:w:{build.path}/{build.project_name}.hex:i"
With this you can use "Upload Using Programmer" with the selected programmer to send over TCP, rather then use the Upload.
That all said, it will only work on Linux.
avrdude: ser_open(): network connects are currently notimplemented for Win32 environments
There's a old piece of software we run in our company that manages RFID cards tapping in/out to open doors.
We want to create an app who identifies who just touched in on a specific place (we have the id for that) and grab their 1st name, to say "Hi [NAME]" on a screen.
As I mentioned, the software is quite old and there are no APIs. It communicates with the RFID hardware via a serial port (COM1).
I was wondering if the best way to get the data I need is to somehow intercept the COM1 traffic and extract/look for the data I want.
Does this sound like the best way to go about it? Would it work, or would it be impossible to get names and numbers from the data being transferred?
Cheers,
Andre
Can you configure the software to use a port other than COM1, or configure the hardware so it's physical serial port is assigned to a different COM port?
If so, take a look at com0com. It's a Windows driver that creates two COM ports on your PC with a virtual NULL modem between them. Data going in on one side comes out on the other.
Here's how you'll set things up:
RFID Reader connected to physical COM port (COMx)
your program bridging COMx to COMy and sniffing the traffic
com0com linking COMy (for your program) to virtual COM1 (for the legacy software)
legacy software
You'll need to write a program to pass data between COMx and COMy while monitoring it for the information you're looking for. Make it simple yet robust, since if it goes down you're reader will stop working.
A Simpler Solution
If you only need to monitor one side of the communications, create a cable that connects the GND and RX pin of COM1 to another COM port. Now your program can monitor that side of the conversation, without interfering with the legacy software.
Well, generally, you can look at RS232 signals, if that's the way you want to do it. It's tricky because you need to "sniff" the signals, which means buying or making a rig that allows the original signals to go through, and then gives you a way to attach to them as well. And, you need to send the transmit and the receive signals to TWO serial ports (on the RX lines). Then you'll probably want to get some "sniffing" software that allows you to look at what you're getting in time sequence (ideally, with time-stamps). Some cutesy protocols also will use modem lines, so you may need to monitor those as well.
Or, try searching for "free serial port monitor" or "serial sniffer".
Good luck!
I remember years ago my friend and i were playing command and conquer red alert and there was a mode were we put the others phone number and the game would dial up and connect. What was this called? and where can i find resource to program for this?
Dial-up Networking perhaps. You will have to learn how to control the modem. I remember there were some commands that looked like this: ATH0++ which was how you could make the modem do different things. Perhaps that will give you something to search for.
This resource looks kind of helpful: http://www.activexperts.com/activcomport/tutorials/modem/
One issue you might find is that there are two types of modems generally. One is an actual modem which is connected to your serial port. The other is what is typically known as a "winmodem" which is usually in a PCI slot and didn't have all of the functionality on the hardware but instead used the hardware drivers which typically only worked in Windows. MODEM stands for "MOdulator DEModulator" which means it just converts a digital signal to analog and vice versa.
In essence, it seems that if you can figure out how to program to the serial/com ports on your computer, you should be able to access the modem.
Another interesting link: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Serial_Programming:Modems_and_AT_Commands
Have a look at TAPI (Telephony API). In Windows world there is a set of APIs in the OS for this (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms737219(VS.85).aspx). The AT command set (Hayes commands) can also be used without TAPI in Windows if you treat your Modem as a COM port and send AT commands to that COM port (that's what actually TAPI does) but it isolates you from their different variants and also running initialization and other commands in a particular order.