Future Technology Devices International communication - serial-port

Will FTDI always converts the data into serial or any other types of transfers?

Will FTDI always converts the data into serial or any other types of
transfers?
Answer to your question in short. FTDI chips implements USB protocol stack that is serial.
The FTDI cable is a USB to Serial (TTL level) converter which allows for a simple way to connect TTL interface devices to USB. The VCC pins of this FTDI cable are configured to operate at 5V with 3.3V I/O.
What happens inside the USB?
USB micro controller inside which talks a proprietary protocol over USB (hence the need for drivers) and converts that into "normal" UART signals and back again.

Related

USB to USB serial communication from PC to PC

I am currently connecting 2 PCs using serial communication and at this time I am using a USB to Serial converter, then a serial cable, then another USB to Serial converter going into the other PC in order to get the communication sent and received.
Is there a way to program the USB ports as COM ports without these converters and still be able to transfer the serial data over the USB using software rather than hardware, thus eliminating the need for the conversions and rather have just a straight USB cable to USB cable connection?
Thanks!

Atmega328p sending data through USB

I'm using the atmega328p and I would like to send data through the USB to use like the serial monitor in the arduino for code testing purposes, so I doesn't need an LCD to print data. I used USART when simulating my code in proteus, and I believe there is a similar approach using the data pins of the USB connector.
When you send data over the UART on the ATmega328, it is converted to serial over USB by the Arduino. The Arduino will enumerate as a virtual serial port on your computer, and you can connect to this with the serial terminal of your choice (screen, PuTTY, RealTerm, etc). The Arduino IDE also has an built-in serial monitor. Note that you cannot use this serial connection while programming the Arduino via the USB port, as it will interfere with the programming.
If you are using the hardware UART for other purposes, then you can use an external TTL serial-USB converter and SoftwareSerial on the Arduino.

Bypassing powered on FTDI. Connect directly to RX/TX pins to drive externally

I'm working with a driver board which communicates with a PC program via USB -> FTDI -> TX/RX into the microcontroller. The serial pins are not broken out on the board and I need to talk to the board from another microcontroller (like Arduino). My plan is to just solder directly to the RX/TX pins on the microcontroller despite the fact that the FTDI is powered on and RX/TX of the FTDI will be electrically connected to those pins. I will not be transmitting anything via USB. My assumption is that the FTDI chip will be passive and I can just drive those pins from my Arduino.
Will this cause me any issues? I'm just concerned if the FTDI passively drives those pins low or high, I'll get "smoke" if I follow through with my plan. Perhaps I should put some resistors on my Arduino's RX/TX just as a safeguard.
It's very possible some of my logic is flawed here. Thanks in advance for your advice!!
Cheers
You need to check with the particular FTDI chip you're using on that board.
Some FTDI chips support RS485 and because of the required multidrop capability they operate as open-drain allowing to connect multiple devices.
Even if this solves your hardware problem, you still need to consider how the (live) FTDI chip may respond to your 'unexpected' incoming (RX) data stream. For example, possible XON/XOFF flow control appearing on TX especially since there won't be a consumer from the PC side and the internal FTDI buffers will eventually fill up.

Arduino Leonardo serial communication

The USB port on my Arduino Leonardo broke off and I don't have a USB-to-serial adapter. Is it possible to wire a USB cable to the TX, RX, Vin, and GND pins so that I can use serial communication between it and my computer?
(It already has my sketch on it.)
Yes, you can solder a USB cable (just cut the type B end off of a standard A-B cable) onto the exposed pads where the port used to be.
Unlike other Arduinos, the Leonardo does not have a built-in USB-to-serial converter the drives the USB port. The microcontroller firmware provides USB device-mode support directly. It also has serial I/O pins.

What happen when use rs232 instead of usb in arduino?

I just start a project which is very basic actually. But I need an information. It is about arduino serial communication. Here is the question.
If I connect arduino to computer using TTL to RS232 converter without USB cable then can I still use serial monitor to get some data or what happens ? Assume arduino is programmed before using usb cable, and it is powered externally when usb is not used.
for instance the code just
Serial.println("It is working");
delay(1000);
Thansk a lot.
you will fry it. Standard RS232 use a +-12V level, while arduino use TTL level (0-5V), so you still need a RS232 -> RS232TTL converter. If you use it, then using virtual serial over USB or real hardware serial is exactly the same, except that hardware serial port never appear/disappear when you plug in the arduino (there is not something like plug'n'play in rs232, it is always plugged)

Resources