Sunday, April 19, 2009

Serial communication with Arduino clone

Today I had problems connecting on serial with an Arduino clone, through the FTDI Basic (3.3V) board from sparkfun. I powered the board from 4 AA batteries (aprox 6V). Serial communication was just not happening, Tx and Rx LEDs were off. I checked the FTDI board, the Atmega board, the serial port, the communication parameters, they all seemed ok. I finally figured out the culprit: the 6V power source! I replaced it with a lower voltage, around 5V, and the serial communication worked like a charm, as before.

The setup looks like in this photo.



Although, the Arduino works just fine with the 4 AA batteries (after the sketch is loaded), it seems that the serial communication is affected, that is, it does not work in this case. Good to know, in case anyone runs into the same kind of situation.

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