chipKIT® Development Platform

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Serial Reading for Atlas Scientific Sensors with MAX32

Created Mon, 18 Nov 2013 06:29:09 +0000 by Endevor

Endevor

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 06:29:09 +0000

I have an EC probe and a PH probe on the way, both with their embedded controllers.

https://www.atlas-scientific.com/kits.html

I've tried using the code they offer as well as a few from some random forums that other people used. It seems the SoftwareSerial library used in MPIDE is "outdated" according to the Arduino IDE v1.05. The probe works with Atlas code on my mega, I just can't get it to work with the max32.

Anyone have any experience or incite on this?

Thanks,

majenko

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 10:47:11 +0000

SoftwareSerial is outdated, because basically it's not really needed.

If you have a MAX32 then you have 6 (yes, SIX) hardware serial ports at your disposal. Why would you want software serial too?

Endevor

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:35:54 +0000

Do feel kind of like an idiot in saying I thought that SoftwareSerial somehow facilitated the HW Serial... Function is in the title...

Regardless, I should be able to access the data in this manner:

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial1.begin(9600);
  Serial2.begin(9600);
  Serial3.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  if(Serial3.available())
    Serial.println("3 Found");
  if(Serial2.available())
    Serial.println("2 Found");
  if(Serial1.available())
    Serial.println("1 Found");
}

Correct? If I have the probe attached to RX3 and TX3, it should return a "3 Found" statement whenever it receives data. I'm still not getting anything however. The LED on the embedded controller does say it's transferring data however.

majenko

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:52:34 +0000

Do you have the latest version of MPLAB, or have you applied the Serial1 Crashes fix? [url]http://chipkit.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9491#p9491[/url]

Endevor

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 00:39:39 +0000

That grabbed a signal. It at least replies that it found something from Serial 3. I'm able to even get some values, though I don't think they're exactly correct. Regardless, I tried the sample code again from Atlas, and that doesn't work.

/*
This software was made to demonstrate how to quickly get your Atlas Scientific product running on the Arduino platform.
An Arduino MEGA 2560 board was used to test this code.
This code was written in the Arudino 1.0 IDE
Modify the code to fit your system.
**Type in a command in the serial monitor and the Atlas Scientific product will respond.**
**The data from the Atlas Scientific product will come out on the serial monitor.**
Code efficacy was NOT considered, this is a demo only.
The TX3 line goes to the RX pin of your product.
The RX3 line goes to the TX pin of your product.
Make sure you also connect to power and GND pins to power and a common ground.
Open TOOLS > serial monitor, set the serial monitor to the correct serial port and set the baud rate to 38400.
Remember, select carriage return from the drop down menu next to the baud rate selection; not "both NL & CR".
*/



String inputstring = "";                                                       //a string to hold incoming data from the PC
String sensorstring = "";                                                      //a string to hold the data from the Atlas Scientific product
boolean input_stringcomplete = false;                                          //have we received all the data from the PC
boolean sensor_stringcomplete = false;                                         //have we received all the data from the Atlas Scientific product


  void setup(){                                                                //set up the hardware
     Serial.begin(38400);                                                      //set baud rate for the hardware serial port_0 to 38400
     Serial3.begin(38400);                                                     //set baud rate for software serial port_3 to 38400
     //inputstring.reserve(5);                                                   //set aside some bytes for receiving data from the PC
     //sensorstring.reserve(30);                                                 //set aside some bytes for receiving data from Atlas Scientific product
     }
 
 
 
   void serialEvent() {                                                         //if the hardware serial port_0 receives a char              
               char inchar = (char)Serial.read();                               //get the char we just received
               inputstring += inchar;                                           //add it to the inputString
               if(inchar == '\r') {input_stringcomplete = true;}                //if the incoming character is a <CR>, set the flag
              }  


  void serialEvent3(){                                                         //if the hardware serial port_3 receives a char 
              char inchar = (char)Serial3.read();                              //get the char we just received
              sensorstring += inchar;                                          //add it to the inputString
              if(inchar == '\r') {sensor_stringcomplete = true;}               //if the incoming character is a <CR>, set the flag 
             }



 void loop(){                                                                   //here we go....
     
  if (input_stringcomplete){                                                   //if a string from the PC has been recived in its entierty 
      Serial3.print(inputstring);                                              //send that string to the Atlas Scientific product
      inputstring = "";                                                        //clear the string:
      input_stringcomplete = false;                                            //reset the flage used to tell if we have recived a completed string from the PC
      }

 if (sensor_stringcomplete){                                                   //if a string from the Atlas Scientific product has been recived in its entierty 
      Serial.println(sensorstring);                                            //send that string to to the PC's serial monitor
      sensorstring = "";                                                       //clear the string:
      sensor_stringcomplete = false;                                           //reset the flage used to tell if we have recived a completed string from the Atlas Scientific product
      }
 }

It doesn't return anything. The only error I get is the command 'reserve' isn't valid, hence the commenting them out. Otherwise, anything need to be changed for the max32? I'm a little new to coding with serial signals.

Endevor

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 02:09:13 +0000

Solved the issue, though I'm not fully sure how. I wrote my own code using the most basic functions to simply read and write to Serial3

Here it is:

String result = "";
String input = "";
String inData = "";
String outData = "";

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(38400);
  Serial3.begin(38400);
}

void loop() {
  
  //Send commands to embedded controller
  if(Serial.available()) {
    inData = (char)Serial.read();
    input += inData;
    if(inData == '\r') {
      Serial3.print(input);
      input = "";
    }
  }
  
  //Receive data from embedded controller
  if(Serial3.available()) {
    outData = (char)Serial3.read();
    if(outData == '\r') {
      Serial.println(result);
      result = "";
    } else
      result += outData;
  }
  
}

Jacob Christ

Sun, 02 Mar 2014 21:05:57 +0000

The serial events may not work properly in chipKIT. I think I tried them a while back and they did nit. I ddon't know if they have been fixed yet.

Jacob