Drivers Advantage 1200 To UART Bridge Controller (COM4)
- Drivers Advantage 1200 To Uart Bridge Controller (com4) Power Supply
- Drivers Advantage 1200 To Uart Bridge Controller (com4) Windows 10
- Drivers Advantage 1200 To Uart Bridge Controller (com4) Controller
- FTDI drivers may be distributed in any form as long as license information is not modified. If a custom vendor ID and/or product ID or description string are used, it is the responsibility of the product manufacturer to maintain any changes and subsequent WHCK re-certification as a result of making these changes.
- By taking advantage of USB bulk transfer mode and large data buffers, PL2303GS is capable of achieving higher throughput compared to traditional UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) ports. The flexible baud rate generator of PL2303GS also could be programmed to generate any rate between 1 bps to 12 Mbps.
Created on: 21 September 2017
Double-click on the 'CP210x USB to UART Bridge Controller' device under 'Ports (COM & LPT)' and verify that USB driver v4.4 is installed, working correctly, and signed by CH Instruments. Step 10: Verify driver status. This completes driver installation. Take note of the COM port number (COM4.
ESP-WROOM-32 testing and first use of the ESP32 Devkit board from DOIT (doit.am), also sold as Geekcreit ESP32 Development Board with WiFi and Bluetooth. How to start using the ESP32 Devkit from DOIT.
This article shows how to do some basic initial tests to see if a new ESP32 Devkit board is working. It also shows how to install Windows drivers for the board and how to communicate with the board from a serial port terminal program in Windows and Linux. The ESP32 Devkit board from DOIT is based on the ESP-WROOM-32 microcontroller from Espressif with integrated WiFi and Bluetooth.
LuaNode is preloaded on the board allowing it to be programmed in the Lua programming language. Some simple programs written in Lua are used to test the board to see if it is running.
Below is a top and bottom view of the board used in this tutorial.
DOIT ESP-WROOM-32 Devkit used in this Testing and First Use Tutorial
ESP32 Devkit ESP-WROOM-32 Board Basic Hardware Information
This section contains the basic minimum information that anyone using the ESP32 Devkit board needs to know before starting to use it, test it or program it.
ESP32 Devkit Power and USB Cable
The ESP32 Devkit board is powered from a micro-USB connector. Plug a USB cable with micro-B plug into the micro-USB socket on the board and the other end into a PC USB port to power up the board. A regulator on the board supplies the ESP-WROOM-32 module with 3.3V derived from the USB 5V.
ESP32 Board Micro-USB Connector
ESP32 Devkit Main Components
Two main components or ICs are found on the board:
- ESP-WROOM-32 module – Espressif microcontroller with integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
- CP2102 – Silicon Labs single-chip USB-to-UART bridge.
ESP-WROOM-32 Microcontroller Module and CP2102 USB-to-UART Bridge
On-board LEDs
A red LED indicates that the board is powered up and has 3.3V from the regulator. The blue LED is user programmable and is connected to the GPIO2 pin of the ESP-WROOM-32 module.
Both LEDs are shown illuminated in the image below.
LEDs on the ESP32 Devkit Board
Hardware and Software References
More information on each hardware and software component of the ESP Devkit board can be found at the following links.
- DOIT – designers of the ESP32 Devkit microcontroller board.
- Espressif – manufacturers of the ESP-WROOM-32 microcontroller module.
- Silicon Labs CP2102 – USB-to-UART bridge.
- LuaNode software – Lua interpreter that is pre-loaded on the board.
There should be no need to install the LuaNode software on the board, it should already be installed when purchased.
Testing the Board – Power Indicator
The first and most basic test that can be done is to power up the board via a USB cable and to check that the red LED lights up as shown in the image below. This confirms that the 3.3V power from the on-board regulator is working.
ESP32 Devkit Power On Led
The next basic test is to see if the board can be detected by the operating system and load drivers for it.
Linux Drivers
Linux drivers should already be installed on most Linux systems. Plug the ESP32 Devkit board into the Linux PC using a USB cable and enter the following command to find the name of the port that the board is connected to.
A more basic and manual test to see if the drivers on a Linux computer have loaded is to first enter the following command in a terminal window without the board plugged into the PC.
Now plug the board in and run the same command again. The new device starting with tty that appears in the list is the ESP32 Devkit board. For example, it appears as ttyUSB0 on my Linux Mint computer.
Also try the following command before and after plugging the board in to see if the board is configured as a ttyUSB device.
Download and Install Windows Drivers
Drivers must be installed on Windows systems for the Silicon Labs CP2102 USB-to-UART bridge chip. After drivers have been loaded, the board appears as a virtual COM port (VCP) on the PC.
Download CP2102 Driver
Go to the CP210x USB to UART Bridge VCP Drivers page and select the driver for your version of Windows. For Windows 7 and 10 download from the Download VCP link as shown highlighted by a red dot below.
CP2102 Driver Download
Install CP2102 Driver
Extract the contents of the downloaded zipped driver file and copy the contents to a folder on your PC.
Use a USB cable to plug the board into a PC USB port. The device driver installation will fail.
Click the Windows Start button and search for device manager. Click Device Manager in the search results to open it as shown below.
CP2102 in Windows Device Manager
Right-click CP2102 in the Device Manager window and select Update driver software... on the menu that pops up. In the dialog box that opens, click Browse my computer for driver software. In the next dialog box, use the Browse... button to navigate to the folder that you extracted the drivers to, then click the Next button as shown below.
CP2102 Windows Driver Install
Drivers for the CP2102 will now be installed on Windows. Click the Close button when done.
Download a Serial Port Terminal Program for Windows
A terminal program is needed to connect to the Lua interpreter on the ESP32 board via the virtual COM port.
If you don't have a serial port terminal program installed on your PC, you can download Tera Term for Windows. Go to the Tera Term download page and download the newest release of Tera Term. Download the zip file, e.g. teraterm-4.96.zip.
Extract the teraterm folder from the downloaded zipped file and place it in a convenient location, e.g. on your desktop.
To run Tera Term, open the folder, e.g. teraterm-4.96, then find and double-click ttermpro.exe.
Serial Port Terminal Program for Linux
Minicom is a text based serial port terminal program for Linux that is run from the command line. On Ubuntu based Linux distributions such as Linux Mint, enter the following command to install Minicom.
Testing the ESP32 Devkit Serial Port Connection
In this test the serial port terminal program is connected to the ESP32 Devkit board. When a connection is made and the board is booted up, diagnostic messages and the Lua prompt will be seen in the terminal window.
Connecting to the ESP32 Devkit using Tera Term in Windows
Before connecting, start Device Manager again and expand the Ports (COM & LPT) item. Find the item called Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COM4) where COMx at the end shows the COM port number of the ESP32 Devkit board. Now that we know the COM port number, we can connect to the board.
Start Tera Term and close the new connection dialog box that pops up. On the top menu select Setup → Serial port.... In the dialog box that opens, select the COM port that you found in device manager and the following parameters: Baud rate: 115200, Data: 8 bit, Parity: none, Stop: 1 bit and Flow control: none as shown in the image below.
ESP32 Devkit Serial Port Settings in Tera Term
Click OK when done. Tera Term should now connect to the Devkit board and information from the board should scroll up the terminal window. Finally the Lua command prompt should appear as shown in the image below. If no connection was made, select File → New connection... from the top menu. Select the Devkit COM port in the dialog box that opens, make sure that Serial is selected and click OK.
Tera Term Lua Prompt
At the prompt, enter the following Lua command that will restart the board and display the boot-up messages again.
The board can also be manually reset by pressing the EN button found next to the micro-USB connector.
Connecting to the ESP32 in Linux using Minicom
Minicom must initially be set up with the communication parameters for the ESP32 Devkit board. This only has to be done once.
Before continuing, make sure that you are a member of the dialout group. This can be changed by opening Users and Groups in Linux Mint. You will need to log out and then back in again for the changes to take effect.
Setting Up Minicom
Open a command line terminal window and enter the following to start the Minicom setup. This will change the default Minicom settings, so must be started as super user because the settings file is saved in the main file system.
A menu will appear. Use the down arrow key to move to Serial port setup and then hit the enter key. Type A to change the serial port to the port that the ESP32 Devkit board is connected to. E.g. change it to /dev/ttyUSB0 and then hit the Enter key. Hit F to set the Hardware Flow Control to No. The default communication parameters should already be right for the board – 115200 8N1.
The image below shows the minicom serial port parameters set up for the ESP32 Devkit. Just make sure that you change the Serial Device to the correct one for your system.
Minicom ESP32 Devkit Serial Port Settings
Hit the Enter key to get back to the main Minicom menu. Use the down arrow key to select Screen and keyboard then hit the Enter key.
Press the Q key to switch local echo on so that you will be able to see what you are typing in minicom. Hit Enter to get back to the main menu. Now select Exit from Minicom and press Enter.
Starting and Using Minicom
First plug your ESP32 Devkit board into the PC USB port. Start Minicom, by entering minicom in a terminal window. Minicom will start and connect to the Devkit board using the parameters previously set up.
Press the En button found next to the micro-USB connector on the ESP32 Devkit board to reset the board. Boot-up text will scroll across the Minicom window, after which the Lua command prompt will appear.
At the prompt, enter the following Lua command that will restart the board and display the boot-up messages again.
Exiting from Minicom
Stay connected using Minicom for the next test. When you need to exit Minicom, press Ctrl + A on the keyboard, then press the X key. Finally hit the Enter key to select the default 'Yes' to exit.
Testing the Blue LED on GPIO2
It is assumed that you have followed the above instructions and are connected to the ESP32 Devkit board using Tera Term in Windows or Minicom in Linux or have connected using some other serial port terminal program.
At the Lua prompt in the serial port terminal, enter the following commands to first set GPIO2 (pin connected to the blue LED) as an output pin and then switch the blue LED on.
Drivers Advantage 1200 To Uart Bridge Controller (com4) Power Supply
The LED can be switched off by entering the following command.
Basic Tests Finished
This concludes the very basic testing of the ESP32 Devkit board. If you managed to run all of the above tests successfully, then you know that your board is powering up correctly, serial communications are working and the microcontroller is booting Lua. Also the blue LED is working which means that the microcontroller is running and responding to commands.
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USB Driver v4.4 Installation Instructions
System Requirements
Windows Vista or 7 (64-bit)?
Administrative privileges on your computer (please consult your system administrator for details)
Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processor...
If your computer is running 32-bit Windows?, we recommend that you install version 4.16 instead.
Driver version 4.4 is intended for use on computers which:
- Run 64-bit Windows? and
- Experience unreliable communication with version 6.x, esp. when using a low baud rate.
Computer processors reported as unreliable with USB driver 6.x
- Intel Core i3
- Intel Core i5
- Intel Core i7
- AMD Phenom II X4
- system included USB 1.x controller
- problematic on firmware updates only
- fixed with driver 4.4
Drivers Advantage 1200 To Uart Bridge Controller (com4) Windows 10
We have signed and posted legacy driver 4.4 as an interim measure. The driver provider (a third party) is aware of the unreliable communication issue and is currently working to resolve it.
The communication problem appears to affect all recent computers with Intel Core i3/i5/i7 processors whose motherboards lack an onboard USB 1.x controller and instead include a USB 2.0 rate-matching hub. If you cannot find a 'Universal' or 'Open' host controller in Device Manager under the 'Universal Serial Bus' category, you may be better off 'beta testing' v4.4 rather than waiting for v6.0 to fail.
Step by Step: Driver Installation
Drivers Advantage 1200 To Uart Bridge Controller (com4) Controller
- Download and run (double-click) the file 'cp210x44.zip' from the link above. Right-click the file and select 'Extract All' to extract the driver files.
Step 1: Extract files to specified directory (C:CHIcp210x44 in the example above).
- Connect the instrument to a USB port on your computer and turn the instrument on. Ignore and close any windows that appear automatically.
Note: If during this step Windows Update insists on automatically installing a different driver version (6.x or higher), you will need to uninstall this driver manually as follows:- Open Device Manager as in Step 3.
- Locate the 'CP2101' device as in Step 4.
- (Optional) Determine the currently installed driver version as in Step 10 to be 6.x or higher.
- Right-click on the device and select Uninstall.
- In the 'Confirm Device Uninstall' dialog box, check 'Delete the driver software for this device' and click OK.
- Disconnect your computer from the internet.
- Disconnect and reconnect the instrument to your computer.
This should prevent automatic installation of Silicon Labs driver version 6.x, which has been found to be problematic with newer Intel Core i3/i5/i7 motherboards.
- Click the Start orb in the lower-left corner of your desktop and type 'device' in the search field. Click on Device Manager in the search results.
Step 3: Open Device Manager.
- In Device Manager, double-click on a device marked with a exclamation mark and named 'CP2101 USB to UART Bridge Controller' or something similar; this should be located under the 'Other devices' or 'Universal Serial Bus' category.
Step 4: Locate and double-click on CP2101 device.
Click the Update Driver button circled above. - Select 'Browse my computer for driver software'.
Step 5: Do not search automatically for drivers.
- Specify the extraction directory from Step 1 and click Next.
Step 6: Search for drivers in the extraction directory from Step 1 (C:CHIcp210x44 in the example above).
- Click Install when presented with a security warning.
Step 7: Trust CH Instruments, Inc. as a publisher.
Silicon Labs wrote the driver; all we (CH Instruments) did was sign it (i.e., vouch for it; see Notes). - Windows will now proceed to install driver files, resulting in the following window when complete:
Step 8: Driver files installed.
- Repeat Steps 4-8 until the 'CP2101 USB to UART Bridge Controller' device no longer shows up with an exclamation mark:
Step 9: Driver installation complete.
Two new devices should now be present in Device Manager: a 'CP210x USB to UART Bridge Controller' under 'Ports (COM & LPT)', and a 'USB Composite Device' under 'Universal Serial Bus controllers'. - Double-click on the 'CP210x USB to UART Bridge Controller' device under 'Ports (COM & LPT)' and verify that USB driver v4.4 is installed, working correctly, and signed by CH Instruments.
Step 10: Verify driver status.
This completes driver installation. Take note of the COM port number (COM4 in the example above). Assign this number in your instrument software, using the System command under the Setup menu, and then run the Hardware Test command under the Setup menu to confirm that the instrument and computer are communicating properly.
Notes
- The USB driver needs to be installed only once on your computer. Multiple instruments can be connected to the same computer, and Windows automatically assign them to different COM ports.
- The COM port number assigned to your instrument may vary from computer to computer, or even on the same computer (rarely).
- You can double-click on the 'CP210x USB to UART Bridge Controller' item in Device Manager to display various status information: driver version number, whether the driver is functioning correctly, etc.
- USB communication is achieved using a USB-serial port converter chip built into the instrument; the driver for this chip, courtesy of Silicon Labs, is what is installed in this section.
- As a result, the instrument software will behave as if this device is connected to a serial port, even though the physical connection is by USB. Thus, you need to use Device Manager as described above to determine what serial port number is assigned to this device.
- USB communication therefore provides no specific advantages over a native serial port besides the difference in physical connectivity; if you have a free serial port available on your PC, we recommend its use over a USB port.
- We include USB support because most computers sold today lack an onboard serial port, and it may be impractical or impossible to add a serial port card.
- Silicon Labs' old 32-bit drivers from 2003 (version 4.16) have been thoroughly tested with our instruments and have been found to be very reliable. However, they are not compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows.
- Silicon Labs' newer drivers (version 6.x) are 64-bit compatible, but unfortunately these newer drivers have been found to be unreliable on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems when using slow baud rates (19.2K and lower). Whether they will work correctly on your computer will depend on your particular hardware. These are closed-source third-party drivers, over which CH Instruments, Inc. has no control. We apologize for any inconvenience and strongly recommend the use of driver version 4.16 on any 32-bit version of Windows, including Windows 7.
- More recently, we have posted Silicon Labs' USB driver version 4.4 as an interim measure. Version 4.4 is compatible with 64-bit Windows, and does not seem to suffer from the slow baud rate problem mentioned above. However, we have only tested version 4.4 briefly, and we are unsure whether it is more reliable than 4.16 (which is 32-bit only). We do not intend version 4.4 to be a permanent replacement for version 6.x; Silicon Labs is aware of the 6.x issue and is working to resolve it.
- Microsoft has only started requiring signed drivers in 64-bit Windows. Contrary to popular belief, however, 64-bit Windows only requires that a driver is signed with a verified certificate, which is not the same as having it vetted by Microsoft's WHQL program. Thus, the driver signing requirement does not necessarily increase stability or security, which is all we end users really care about. Case in point: Silicon Labs' driver 6.0 is WHQL-certified and thus does not elicit any 'untrusted publisher' warnings when installed; however, this driver is known to suffer from serious stability issues (BSOD on surprise removal). On the other hand, we signed Silicon Labs' version 4.4 with a simple (verified) Authenticode code signing certificate, bypassing WHQL entirely (but of course forfeiting any hope of obtaining the coveted 'Certified for Windows' logo).
What this all means is that 64-bit Windows will allow you to install a driver if and only if somebody vouches for it, nothing more and nothing less. If you have any questions or corrections, please contact us.