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Full Version: Standard TX/RX Serial to USB for Autopilot with Latest OpenPlotter Release
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I've got the latest Open Plotter Release on a Raspberry Pi 3B and so far so good. I've had trouble with the cheaper 2-pin Serial to USB connectors where they don't have a unique serial number, and for some reason assigning by port location forced the PI to choose only one (one of three) adapters to favor and ignore the other two. I only paid $4 for these cheap ch341 chipset adaptors, so I ditched two of them and bought a better quality Nextech serial to USB adaptor with the 5 wire pinout and TX/RX led indicators.

I'm using this new adaptor to talk to my Raymarine Autopilot and compas via NMEA0183 in/out wires.
I'm following the documentation in your how to PDF file linked to in this forum to test out my connections using the diagnostic buttons, but the PDF hasn't been updated since the last open plotter release. There is no longer an option under serial port direction for IN/OUT or BOTH - only IN or OUT but my adaptor is a BOTH type adaptor. How do I test out the datastreams on both the RX (IN) and TX (OUT) ports on my single send/recieve adaptor to make sure I've got connection and NMEA0183 data?

Dan
You can parallel another adapter on the IN or OUT ports, and connect that adapter to a separate laptop. If you are just running OpenCPN on the laptop, you can look at the datastream on the diagnostic window. If you are using Linux on your laptop, you can issue 'cat /dev/ttyUSB0' (or whatever the interface gets registered as) to see the data stream.

You could also do it with an oscilloscope, but you won't be able to see the actual data that's being sent, just the waveform.
(2018-10-26, 02:09 PM)svbalachandra Wrote: [ -> ]I've got the latest Open Plotter Release on a Raspberry Pi 3B and so far so good. I've had trouble with the cheaper 2-pin Serial to USB connectors where they don't have a unique serial number, and for some reason assigning by port location forced the PI to choose only one (one of three) adapters to favor and ignore the other two. I only paid $4 for these cheap ch341 chipset adaptors, so I ditched two of them and bought a better quality Nextech serial to USB adaptor with the 5 wire pinout and TX/RX led indicators.

Are you sure? I tested this last spring, and I could have 3 or more arduinos (using ch341) assigned to different ports. It even works remembering which ports they are plugged to a hub.
Quote:an option under serial port direction for IN/OUT or BOTH - only IN or OUT but my adaptor is a BOTH type adaptor. How do I test out the datastreams on both the RX (IN) and TX (OUT) ports on my single send/recieve adaptor to make sure I've got connection and NMEA0183 data?
Openplotter cannot control in or out, a serial port will have both. Can't you test it by seeing if it is working?
(2018-10-26, 03:04 PM)seandepagnier Wrote: [ -> ]
(2018-10-26, 02:09 PM)svbalachandra Wrote: [ -> ]I've got the latest Open Plotter Release on a Raspberry Pi 3B and so far so good. I've had trouble with the cheaper 2-pin Serial to USB connectors where they don't have a unique serial number, and for some reason assigning by port location forced the PI to choose only one (one of three) adapters to favor and ignore the other two. I only paid $4 for these cheap ch341 chipset adaptors, so I ditched two of them and bought a better quality Nextech serial to USB adaptor with the 5 wire pinout and TX/RX led indicators.

Are you sure?   I tested this last spring, and I could have 3 or more arduinos (using ch341) assigned to different ports.   It even works remembering which ports they are plugged to a hub.


Quote:an option under serial port direction for IN/OUT or BOTH - only IN or OUT but my adaptor is a BOTH type adaptor. How do I test out the datastreams on both the RX (IN) and TX (OUT) ports on my single send/recieve adaptor to make sure I've got connection and NMEA0183 data?
Openplotter cannot control in or out, a serial port will have both.     Can't you test it by seeing if it is working?

It may just be that my ch341 adapters were cheap. I haven't found anything on this forum where anyone else had a similar problem with ch341 adaptors. However I feel better using a higher quality adaptor for my autopilot anyway. I'm new to pypilot and haven't tried it out yet - that's the next step. I just want to make sure Open Plotter is reading and transmitting on my adaptor first which is a feature that seems to have been available on previous verisons of Open Plotter but not with this realease due ot the absence of the "BOTH" serial connection.
i have two of those cheap ones i just plugged in that makes 3 of the "qinheng electronics" show up in lsusb one is pypilot. when i looked in op serial and applied a name, it said it needed to save as port on usb instead of by device.
I've learned that if you double click the line in the signalk tab for the TX/RX RS422/USB Adaptor you then will have the option to choose "BOTH" input/output, so I got that working and I can see the output data stream when I press diagnostic. Still no input data though... going to do more testing...