[ale] OT: Arduino

[Jim Lynch]

On 01/14/2015 08:52 AM, Boris Borisov wrote:
> Speaking of USB FTDI cable. Can I use RS232 to TTL cable instead.
>
Carefully, yes.  If this board is a 5V board and your cable is 5V then 
maybe.  The specs on the board show it's a 3.3 V part but the reviews 
indicate it's 5V so  check to be sure.

A special USB FTDI cable that is commonly used with the Arduino hw/sw 
had a control pin that does a reset of the Arduino when you start a 
download.   If you don't wire it up right or if the software doesn't 
know how to toggle that pin using your cable or your cable doesn't have 
that pin, you'll have to do a manual reset.  If the picture on the web 
site is correct that board might not have the reset pin.

I'd search for plans on how to program a home brew Arduino board. That 
should give you all you need to know about wiring to a non standard 
serial cable.

I assume that the Arduino IDE doesn't really care if it's talking to 
/dev/ttyUSB0 vs /dev/ttyS0.

Jim.