Can I connect USB-to-Serial cable to BBB?

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gilbnx
 
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Can I connect USB-to-Serial cable to BBB?

Post by gilbnx »

Hi,
I was wondering if I can connect a standard USB-to-Serial into the BBB's USB host port?

I have a cable and I did try to connect it; I did not see, however, a device for that USB (On my other unix machine, that would be showing as /dev/ttyUSB0).

If it's possible to connect - can someone please point me to an explanation on how to make it work?

Thanks!
Gil.

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adafruit_support_rick
 
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Re: Can I connect USB-to-Serial cable to BBB?

Post by adafruit_support_rick »

Should work. You may need t install the drivers.

Are you using this cable in particular?
https://www.adafruit.com/product/18
The drivers for that are here:
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

gilbnx
 
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Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2014 5:13 am

Re: Can I connect USB-to-Serial cable to BBB?

Post by gilbnx »

Thanks Rick,
I have a cable that I've used in the past:
http://www.aten-usa.com/products/USB-&- ... C232A.html

I'm not sure if the drivers you've pointed out are generic or if those are all tightly coupled with the cable manufacturer.

While looking into that, I have found that I cannot compile on my BBB (and apologies, I'm somewhat newbiew :-) ). I guess I need to download the kernel source before trying to compile and use any driver on my board?

Thanks,
Gil.

tintar
 
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Re: Can I connect USB-to-Serial cable to BBB?

Post by tintar »

to compile kernel objects / modules - if you're on debian, all you'll need is kernel headers package and likely build-essential (apologies if that one is probably obvious) e.g.
# apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential
if you're on angstrom, sorry no idea - hope someone else can help.
(hm you may also need libusb dev package too, check the requirements of your source code)

that Aten cable looks to be prolific chipset 2303 type? i.e. the most-cloned one around. prolific broke their windows drivers deliberately because of all the clones, but it should not be such a problem if you are connecting it to linux/BBB. what output do you get from 'lsusb'? or even from dmesg?

but yeah, you won't see a device node in the filesystem unless the correct object gets loaded.

if it was me, I would get a FTDI cable (which, years ago, is precisely what I did!) - it is equally inexpensive, and just makes life so much easier w.r.t. drivers.

gilbnx
 
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Re: Can I connect USB-to-Serial cable to BBB?

Post by gilbnx »

Thanks tintar (and no, you are not stating the obvious to this newbie :-) I appreciate the lengthly explanation).
I will probably end up purchasing the FTDI cable or use the mini-cape with the DB9 plug (I saw one online, I hope it's compatible with the BBB).

As for the linux-headers, my uname -r produced the following: "3.8.13-bone47" but there is no linux-headers with that extension when I try to install it. any hints on how to proceed? I would like to be able to compile in the future...

Thanks!

tintar
 
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Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2014 2:00 pm

Re: Can I connect USB-to-Serial cable to BBB?

Post by tintar »

gilbnx wrote:As for the linux-headers, my uname -r produced the following: "3.8.13-bone47" but there is no linux-headers with that extension when I try to install it. any hints on how to proceed? I would like to be able to compile in the future...
apologies, yeah - looking now I only see a generic linux-headers package, and when you go into detailed information it is 3.2. my bbb is also at 3.8.13-bone47 as you mention, so 3.2 is likely not going to be of much help.

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