USB to TTL Basics
#1
Hello,

Quite a few people have reported problems and been unable to determine if their Pine was functional or not. The easisest way to monitor your pine is with a USB to TTL serial adapter. There are many types of these for PC's on MAC I am unsure but if someone has knowledge in that are please post and we will try to get a Mod to sticky this. 

Things you will need. A PC. A terminal program able to access COM ports and a USB to TTL adapter for 3.3V. Cables and wires needed to hook it all up. 

Things to look for CH340 ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-To-RS232-TTL...Sw5IJWgmPc ) is what I am currently using. It has drivers from Windows XP through Windows 10 I believe. 

I have also in the past used a FTDI232RL ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/FT232RL-3-3V-5-5...SwrklVMjIp ) which also has lots of drivers available. There a many adapters out there that only support XP through Windows 7 so pay attention to what others you buy. If unsure ask here and hopefully someone will know if it will work.

Connect your serial adapter of choice to your pc and get the drivers setup. When you are done you should be able to find the device in device manager and it will tell you what COM port it is associated with. 

Whatever solution you choose you need to make 3 connections to the pine. These are hooked up in this manner.
RX on FTDI/CH340 to pin 7 on EXP connector
TX on FTDI/CH340 to pin 8 on EXP connector
Gnd on FTDI/CH340 to pin 6 on EXP connector

I use Putty for a terminal program I set it to connect to COM4 and set the baud rate to 115200 and connect. 

Then power up the Pine, you should be watching text fly by. If you are troubleshooting after the boot stops read through the scrollback and find where it mentions errors, you can copy/paste them here or if you are grabbing more than say 20 lines use http://pastebin.com and post the link here along with your issue. 

A few pcitures. http://imgur.com/a/vKl6j

I am attaching a boot log to show you what the output is like.

Sorry if this is a bit rough but wanted to get it posted during my lunch hour. I am thick skinned and open to any comments, suggestions, additions, criticisms etc. So speak up.  As far as I am concerned we are always learning, there is nobody who knows it all in tech.


Attached Files
.txt   boot-pine-debian.txt (Size: 55.83 KB / Downloads: 551)


Messages In This Thread
USB to TTL Basics - by rahlquist - 05-04-2016, 10:21 AM
RE: USB to TTL Basics - by tkaiser - 05-04-2016, 10:44 AM
RE: USB to TTL Basics - by tllim - 05-04-2016, 10:47 AM
RE: USB to TTL Basics - by VeeKayB1 - 05-04-2016, 01:03 PM
RE: USB to TTL Basics - by rahlquist - 05-04-2016, 01:25 PM
RE: USB to TTL Basics - by DaveyDarko - 05-04-2016, 01:24 PM
RE: USB to TTL Basics - by xmasone - 05-06-2016, 04:56 PM
RE: USB to TTL Basics - by rahlquist - 05-06-2016, 05:33 PM
RE: USB to TTL Basics - by DaveyDarko - 05-06-2016, 06:01 PM

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