windows - Output to Serial Port

07
2014-07
  • user1683391

    I am trying to output to an arduino through the serial port in windows using a program called boblight. Basically, I have to tell it where to output. I have tried "COM3", "dev/com3", and "dev/ttyS3". I have searched around and found nothing. Any help?

    OS is Windows 8.1 Pro

    • Answers
  • nmz787

    The Arduino IDE that you program the Arduino board with will tell you what COM port the device is connected with. Click the 'Tools' menu, then click 'Serial Port'... or check the bottom-right corner of the IDE, mine says 'Arduino UNO on COM1'.

    As for boblight, this discussion says the correct format is '/dev/comX' where X is the number of the COM port the device is connected to. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=145908


    • Related Question

    Windows with putty via USB serial cable to Linux serial port - output ok, input isn't
  • Questioner

    I am trying to get two way serial communications going between a Windows XP system and a Linux system (RHEL 5). I have 

    /sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS0

    in /etc/inittab.

    I am using a generic USB to serial adaptor on Windows (Unitek) and a null modem cable.

    I have putty configured for 9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity, one stop bit, no flow control.

    I get the login prompt from agetty in the putty window but input does not work; I see weird characters in the putty screen. I can echo output into the device from windows and see it, but

    cat < /dev/ttyS0

    just prints out weird characters from what I type.

    Any and all suggestions will be welcome.

    Thanks!


    • Related Answers
  • see an example

    It turned out to be a cable issue. I was using a null-modem cable and a straight-through cable was needed. I did some testing using two USB-to-serial converters on the Linux box so that I wouldn't have windows in the picture and was able to isolate it to the serial cable.

    Thanks for your responses.

  • hlovdal

    Are you sure the hardware is working ok? I would suggest opening a serial terminal program on each side and send text each way (hyperterminal on windows, minicom on linux).

  • ldigas

    Not saying this is your case, but in the past I used the same cable to connect a laptop to some working machines. Didn't work ... whatever we did, it didn't work. The cable was ok though.
    Then we tried a different brand of cable (everything else, the same) ... worked!

    Never found out what was wrong ... but heard from other people having the same problem. This is not very helpful, just saying ...