Moteino USB any different than Moteino + FTDI Adapter? OSX environment

[HeneryH]

I have a bunch of Moteinos that work fine on my Mac.  I had a Moteino-USB that I thought was hosed so I sent it back to Felix for reburn and just got it back.

The thing still doesn't recognize on my Mac.  I took it over to a PC I have which has a whole set of other issues so can't be used for real use but... it did recognize.

So, the question is, is there any engineering difference between a Mot-USB and a Mot+FTDI?

[ggallant]

Henry,

I had similar problems with Centos 6 Linux. Turned out that the FTDI driver did not include the latest version. I was able to force the issue by manually loading the driver with the correct USB ids. Since them I have switched to a newer kernel. There are a couple of other threads on this topic.

George

[HeneryH]

So there must be some differences in the chips.  I wonder if the same thing is true of the kit boards like the MotionMote.  I have another thread where I ask if the USB on the MotionMote should allow programming or just power. 

Any idea on how to force the correct driver on a Mac?

[kobuki]

I don't have a Mac, but would try this. Does this help?

[HeneryH]

I don't have a Mac, but would try this. Does this help?

That is where I got the drivers I am using.  Works fine for the FTDI adapter, but not for the USB-Moteino.  Not sure if it is supposed to or not, but it doesn't work with the USB-MotionMote either.

This is why I am wondering if there is a hardware difference between the two.

[Felix]

My FTDI-Adapters are currently using FT232RL chips. All my other USB devices including MoteinoUSB and MotionMote use FT231XS chips.

[HeneryH]

Thanks for clarifying Felix.  The challenge for us Mac users now is to figure out how to get the FT231xs to work in OSX.

[Felix]

Doesn't the driver over here work?
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

[HeneryH]

Not for the USB-Mot or MotionMot, only for the FTDI adapter.

[nightsight01]

I had some issues with the moteino usb and my Mac.  I found using a different cable helped me establish communication.  I think it may be more sensitive, as I have had no issues with an ftdi cable and regular moteino.

[Felix]

Right, cables can make a difference, I found that some users report the same problem and changing the cable sometimes results in success.

[HeneryH]

I'll see if I can find any more mini style cables.  For the last several years all of my phones have gone micro so the majority of the cables I have lying around are micro.

[HeneryH]

Three cables and no luck, all respond the same.  At least two of them are labeled as USB 2.0 cables.

If there is someone who is using 64 Bit OSX 10.10 Yosemite with drivers loaded from http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm currently at version 2.2.18 please respond to either me via PM or here.  If there is someone with it working, I can compare system configuration items.

I can get the FT232R FTDI Adapter Card working fine but not any of the FT231X boards. 

[Felix]

I think as someone mentioned elsewhere that OSX made their own version of the VCP driver which might be the root of all this not working on OSX. Gotta love apple...

[HeneryH]

I did see something about that Apple version.  I saw a blog about disabling that and then the FTDI version should work, but I couldn't get it to.  There are about twenty variables that could change; os, os-version, os-bit-length, time, FTDI version, ftdi chip, etc etc etc which makes it hard to compare experiences.  In the mean time, at least I have the adapter card I can use.

If someone else has similar experiences we can collaborate on a solution.