How To Setup Serial Console Cable Over the Pinebook

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Greetings,

The purpose of this photo blog is to provide a working tutorial for setting up a serial console over the Pinebook, by utilizing the audio headphone jack which also doubles as a universal asynchronous receiver|transmitter; uart(0).

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          Important Note:   In the pic above you will notice that all three wires are plugged in.  In practice don't do this on the outset;  only plug in the black and white wires-- only ground and the Pinebook's transmit wire ( in my case white-Tx ).   The reason for this is that often the Pinebook will not boot at all, or only partially boot, if the red wire-Rx is plugged in-- because the Tx line from the Rock64 provides 3v3 voltage (bleed current) that interferes with the Pinebook!  Start the boot-up with the red-Rx wire unplugged and then plug it in after the logon prompt appears on the console.  Failure to heed this warning will cause frustration -- words to the wise.

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Thank you for this post! Sounds interesting and fun to be able to access the pb via serial (and see boot and shutdown process), so I've ordered a ch340g and a plug online  

I've cut out the bit above, because i was wondering if the issue described there (" because the Tx line from the Rock64 provides 3v3 voltage (bleed current) that interferes with the Pinebook!  ") will also be there if you connect it to the pine64 usb?

Cheers!

Yes, it is possible.  If the transmit line from the serial console is plugged into the SBC being booted, the SBC being booted may not boot.   I have noticed this behavior on all of the boards--  sopine, pineA64+, Pinebook, and Rock64.

I always boot the the SBC with the transmit line from the serial console (transmit Tx from the CH340g) unplugged until I get the logon prompt from the SBC;  Again, to watch the boot-up messages all you need is ground, and the transmit line from the SBC!