Serial IO connected while powered off?

[chrismyers81]

I noticed on the BBB documentation that you're not supposed to allow any sensors, etc. to send power to an IO port on the BBB while it is powered off, or it can/will damage the CPU. Does this also apply to serial connections? I want to use a BBB for a data logger from an Arduino, where the data will be sent over a serial connection to the BBB, and wanted to make sure that I wouldn't risk damaging the BBB if the Arduino starts sending data before the BBB has had a chance to initialize, or if the BBB loses power but the Arduino doesn't.

[adafruit2]

Thats a good question. We haven't heard of any issues with serial consoles, especialyl since its pretty common to keep the serial cable connected while rebooting. this might be a better question for the BBB team. We'll try to get their attention but if you could post in the BBB google group that might be the best way to get a fast answer!

[adafruit2]

According to Gerald - this is true for everything *except* the serial port connector which is protected

[chrismyers81]

Awesome, thank you very much! :) do you know if he was referring to the serial debug header, or the serial ports on the regular gpio headers, or both?