Using the FT230X USB-Serial Converter

The FT230X provides a convenient USB-UART interface for the SecureIoT1702 Development Board which can be used to create an interface between the CEC1702 and a host device (e.g. a PC serial terminal application).

USB Driver Installation

Virtual Com Port drivers for the FT230X are available from FTDI.

Identifying and Connecting to the FT230X

Once the USB drivers are properly installed, a new serial port object should become available for application use. Under Windows, the serial port should become visible from the Windows Device Manager, in the “Ports (COM & LPT)” category and should be assigned a new COMx name (where x is a number, ex: "COM2"). The exact COMx number assigned to the hardware will depend in part upon how many COMx based hardware devices have previously been connected to the machine, as each new hardware instance must be assigned a new and unique number, to avoid potential conflicts (e.g., two simultaneously attached hardware devices are not allowed to share the same COMx number).

If a machine currently has more than one COMx based hardware device attached to the machine, multiple COMx entries (but different numbers, e.g., COM1 and COM2) may exist in the Windows Device Manager "Ports (COM & LPT)" category and it may not be clear which COMx port number is specifically associated with the FT230X device. If this occurs, the COMx number can be manually identified by temporarily detaching the USB connection to the FT230X while watching the Windows Device Manager, to identify which device entry disappears (and subsequently re-appears in the list, upon re-attaching the FT230X).

Once the COMx port number assigned to the FT230X is known, any conventional serial port terminal program can be used to open/close/read/write to the COMx port. Upon opening the COMx port and writing characters to it, the FT230X will forward the characters out of the hardware UART TX pin (which would normally be connected to the PIM microcontroller via jumper J37). Similarly, characters originating from the Explorer 16/32 Development Board (or attached accessories) will be transmitted to the host terminal program, when J38 is capped. Although any standard third party serial terminal program can be used, Microchip provides an example USB serial terminal program called "ComXDBG" which implements the UART Bootloader firmware-programming feature.

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