Accessing WL-520GU Serial Port - mess output on terminal

[Patrick]

According to part3 of this project posted at:

http://mightyohm.com/blog/2008/10/build ... -wl-520gu/

I tried to access the serial port using USB-RS232 (DB9) cable, bought off-the-shelf)



I soldered it in stead of using the converter adapter mentioned in the post above.




here the wire are guaranteed nottouch each other.

What i got from reading the serial port is something like this....



when you input something (e.g ls, cd , pwd, etc) , the router respond me.

any idea what is the reason for that?

[El1m1nate]

yeah i had the same problem with a 5v FTDI usb <-> serial converter. its because the output from the router is 3v, and this messes up comm between the pc and router.

My solution was to program a PIC to receive on its USART and send the info straight out on its USART. since the PIC can receive 3v signals, and sends out 5v, i was able to get my computer the data.
as you have found out, there is no problem sending the data, as the router can accept the 5v from the serial converter output.

you could also buy a 3v FTDI cable...

[Patrick]

That's great. I'll buy a 3V cable and try it again. I'll update the result then.

Thank you for your reply.

[mightyohm]

The only other thing I would check is your comm settings... Make sure you're using 115200 8N1 with no flow control.

[Patrick]

thanks to the professionals here. I finally get the wl-520gu working with my serial cable. this time I'm using 3v3 cable. connection is also using wire tapping.

I twisted two 4-pin head to full-fill the adapter board's function, it's a quick & dirty solution, workable but not very professional.


connected to FTDI-232-3v3 cable bought from farnel (47AUD, which I never realized it is so expensive. the previous 5V cable only cost 15AUD)


with everything configured properly. the board finally give me the expected output of booting, tx/rx works perfectly.



thank you again. & support for the forthcoming talks about this project

[El1m1nate]

really? the 5v one is that cheap?
The last one i purchased was $30AUD for the 5v one.

[mightyohm]

Patrick -

i'm glad you got it figured out! I didn't realize that a 5V cable would produce garbage, but that is really good to know.

[Patrick]

the 5v cable was bought from a local computer shop.

The Australia Computer Online
1 baker st, Enfield, NSW 2136
tel: +61 2 97446667