[Hardware][Arduino][Pre-boot] Universal Arduino Serial Adapter

kemonine96 said:

Overview
I have designed a "universal" serial adapter that the XDA community might appreciate. I recently needed access to a variety of devices using serial TTL and RS232 communication. The devices being a phone, router and firewall unit. I talked with a few friends that are in IT and polled some other ROM developers to get an idea on what they may find useful in a serial adapter device. Below is the result of the work. The idea is to have 1 serial adapter that takes care of all of your DB9 / null modem / goofy pinouts in one package.

Project Page
I have posted all of the code, pictures and an early circuit diagram to github: https://github.com/mcrosson/arduino_universal_serial_adapter . As I continue to develop and implement the project I will be pushing to github. Please note at this time the circuit diagram is a bit out of date. I am working on getting an updated diagram built but I am still learning Eagle and it will be a little while before I have it published.

Compatible Devices

• Phone UART chips
• Null modem serial ports
• Cisco serial consoles

Working Features

• Configurable line speed
• TTL voltage adjustments (1.8V, 3.3V, 5V)
• RS232 communication
• Full UI

Future Features

• Session recording to SD card
• RTC for timestamped sessions and output timestamps
• Inline display of serial communication on LCD

Known Issues

• At 115200 line speeds the serial channel may drop characters -- This appears to be a speed limitation / bad code
• UI timeout isn't reset when events occur Fixed in 7f60a42f9b
• Timeout config doesn't reset / change current timeout Fixed in ebd4ac5d04

Code
IDE / Environment
This project was developed using stino (Sublime Text 2 plugin). It works slightly differently (read: more powerful) than the standard Arduino IDE. This project may or may not build under the Arduino IDE.

Configuration
The `Project.h` and `Project.cpp` files define the pinouts in use, Arduino pinout and a number of other items that may vary between builds. Please read through these [short] files and update the pinouts, addresses and anything else that may be different before uploading to your Arduino.

Prototype

Demo
I have posted some rough demo videos here (clickable) demonstrating some of the projects functions.

Parts

• Arduino Mega
• AdaFruit 1.8" LCD with MicroSD Card Slot
• PSP Joystick
• LED backlit buttons
• Spark Fun MicroUSB breakout
• AdaFruit logic level converter (bi-directional)
• RJ-45 jacks
• DB9 jack
• Maxim Max3232 RS232 to TTL DIP IC's

Credits / Thanks

• ChildOfTheHorn/Stacy Wylie
• Adam Outler
• Motorhead
• utkanos
• bhundven

Articles / Information Used For Project

• http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1901376
• http://forums.hackaday.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=623
• http://petervanhoyweghen.wordpress.com/2012/11/08/using-the-leonardo-as-usb-to-* serial-converter/
• http://www.cellbots.com/how-to/handling-3-3v-to-5v-logic-level-conversion/
• https://plus.google.com/104711040110222472212/posts/3764HBYeb2X
• http://www.cutedigi.com/arduino-shields/rs232-shield-for-arduino.html
• http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/SoftwareSerial
• http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoSoftwareRS232
• http://www.ossmann.com/5-in-1.html
• http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/cable/RS-232.html
• http://www.usconverters.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=61&chapter=0

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kemonine96 said:

Quick update on progress: I implemented some basic sd card logging and RTC functionality today. I also cleaned up some of the code and generally improved things.

Ran into an issue with sd card data transfers being "slow" which is forcing me to look into non-standard libraries for io purposes. My next step will be to be able to log data at 115200 baud to the sd card. Hopefully I'll have this rectified soon.

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