Just received my moteinos and FTDI adapter in the mail, and I'm attempting to get started. I have done the following:
* connected my Mac to the FTDI adapter, which connects to the moteino
* installed the OSX driver from http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm, and the RFM12B, RFM69 and SPIFlash libraries from github
* selected "Adruino Uno" as the board, and "/dev/cu.usbserial-A7048O1O" as the Serial Port
* uploaded the "Blink" sketch
* connected a volt meter to pin 13 and GND.
After the IDE says "Done uploading", nothing happens. Voltage at pin 13 remains at 0.
However, after I disconnect the USB (and thus all power) from the moteino, and reconnect it, the voltage on ping 13 oscillates as it is supposed to.
My guess would be that during programming, the moteino is waiting for one more thing before attempting to run the sketch but doesn't get it, so maybe there is a serial/USB/terminal/driver/... kind of problem? Of course, I could be completely off because I'm new to this ... my plain Arduino Uno does not require disconnecting after uploading, with the same setup.
The MoteinoUSB does not (or should not) require disconnecting to reboot or start the sketch. The bootloader should jump directly to the sketch after upload.
Is this behavior the same on all the units? Your flow sounds correct but I'm not a OSX user to I don't have expert advice there, maybe someone else can chip in here.
If you could try this on a Windows PC I could offer more insight, but I cannot remember ever seeing that kind of behavior or a MoteinoUSB on Windows.
By the way the Moteino LED is connected to D9 not D13 as shown in the diagrams here: http://lowpowerlab.com/moteino/#pinout
Attempting to get it to work on Linux. The Linux driver here seems ancient: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm and I have some difficulties compiling it. Suggestions?
P.S. I don't do Windows and own neither a machine nor a current Window license ... seems a shame to pay more to Microsoft than for an entire zoo of cool moteinos ... :-)
This is 99% of the time a driver issue. I think there are numerous threads with this type of issue in the forum, a search may reveal some good leads.
Quote from: Johannes.Ernst on November 11, 2014, 12:30:27 AM
Attempting to get it to work on Linux. The Linux driver here seems ancient: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm and I have some difficulties compiling it. Suggestions?
P.S. I don't do Windows and own neither a machine nor a current Window license ... seems a shame to pay more to Microsoft than for an entire zoo of cool moteinos ... :-)
Which version of Linux are you using? I was able to install Arduino IDE 1.5.8 on Ubuntu 13.10 and did not need to install any additional drivers to use a standard FTDI cable. The driver is important because the DTR & RTS lines need to be controlled to force a device reset.
Tom
Got it to work on Arch Linux. Some notes for the next person looking into this:
* The FTDI driver does not need to be compiled on Linux, there's kernel module 'ftdi_sio' that should take care of the communication
* You may need a package called 'libusb-compat'
* The device /dev/ttyUSB has strange permissions. Use chmod/chown to fix. The Arduino UI will not show it unless it has rights to write to it.
* The Arduino UI wants to write to /var/lock, make sure it can.
In other words, the FTDI driver on OSX is broken.
And, just for your amusement, if I attempt to access it on OSX from within a VirtualBox virtual machine running Linux, the entire VM crashes.
Thanks for the update and for the pointers. This is a good keeper for those looking for a similar answer/solution.
Talking to FTDI support: they say that OSX supposedly has the correct driver already built-in in recent versions of the OS, and no driver installation is required. I followed the instructions and installed the ancient drivers they have on their site, and I'm currently attempting to find out how to uninstall them again and go back to stock OSX, so I cannot currently verify whether this is true.
@Felix: you may want to update your site to point out to people that no install may be required ... if that turns out to be incorrect, people will show up in the forums and be no worse off :-)
Thanks for the suggestion. I would think the common sense is to plug the unit in the computer and see if something happens and if a serial port shows up. If not, then proceed to drivers installation, and if that doesn't solve the issue, then come to the forum. I can add the comments in the driver installation instructions.
I found OSX Kernel extension ./System/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext which is presumably the FTDI driver I got by installing the driver from their website, removed it, and rebooted. Running the Arduino IDE again, it recognizes Serial Ports /dev/tty.usbserial-A7048O1O /dev/cu.usbserial-A7048O1O.
However, when I attempt to upload I get a bit of LED blinking, and then this message in verbose mode:
avrdude: Version 5.11, compiled on Sep 2 2011 at 18:52:52
Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
Copyright (c) 2007-2009 Joerg Wunsch
System wide configuration file is "/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Resources/Java/hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"
User configuration file is "/Users/jernst/.avrduderc"
User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping
Using Port : /dev/cu.usbserial-A7048O1O
Using Programmer : arduino
Overriding Baud Rate : 115200
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: ser_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude done. Thank you.
If I do the same with a plain Arduino, the devices are /dev/tty.usbmodem1421 and /dev/cu.usbmodem1421, and the upload works. So it seems that the OSX built-in FTDI driver has some trouble with the chip on your FTDI adapter. I'll forward this to FTDI support, but I guess the answer for now is: don't try this on a mac ;-)
Update 2014-11-19: FTDI support pointed me to a document that describes how to uninstall their driver on OSX 10.9: http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/AppNotes/AN_134_FTDI_Drivers_Installation_Guide_for_MAC_OSX.pdf page 9.
They say "The procedure for OS X 10.10 is being verified."
Not sure what's going on there ... but I know for sure others are using it on a mac and not having these issues.