UART bridge to external program

General
1

Hi all,

I would like to use the BusPirate5 hardware for programming an external device over UART. Normally when I use a serial programmer, I would pass the serial port to be used to the program that will program it. Whether it’s arduino_cli, esptool or whatever program that expects a serial device, such as arduino-cli upload -p /dev/ttyUSB0 --fqbn arduino:avr:uno HelloWorld. I want to use the BusPirate mainly because of the built-in level shifters.
Is this something that can be achieved by putting the device in bridge mode? If so, should I kill the BusPIrate terminal after setting it to bridge mode and then pass /dev/ttyACM0 to arduino_cli? Or should we extend the BP firmware to create a new (virtual) serial device for other programs to use?

1 Like
2

Be sure to grab the latest firmware, we just fixed a bug impacting bridge a few minutes ago.

You have the right idea:

  • Configure UART mode for the speed and settings you need
  • Enable a power supply
  • Then run bridge, it disables the toolbar by default.
  • Close the terminal and then use the other software with the serial port.
  • When you’re done you can press the button to exit bridge, or just disconnect the Bus Pirate.
3

That is amazing, thank you so much for the fix and the quick reply!

1 Like
4

Let us know how it works out! :slight_smile:

5

It worked! Thanks!

Sorry to go off-topic, but while working with this I thought there would be a feature of doing a live logic analyzer view, to see what I am sending to the device? Is that possible while you’re doing bridge mode? Its seems /dev/ttyACM1 can’t be used by Sigrok (normal version) anymore when I set the /dev/ttyACM0 to UART bridge

1 Like
6

Interesting question. At the moment the live action logic analyzer is limited to commands in the terminal that execute in a defined period of time. For example bus commands to chips, or an address scanner. It is disabled for long running commands.

There are a couple reasons for this:

  • Long running commands will exceed the logic analyzer storage, which could be offset by allowing the user to do multiple captures or capture on trigger
  • Currently bridge runs in a tight loop until you press the button. It is not cooperative multitasking, so the sigrok/SUMP interface isn’t being serviced thus no connection.

There are a couple ways we could change this.

  • Service bridge and other long commands via a periodic service hook, so that the binary mode port is still being serviced in the main loop
  • Move the logic analyzer business side to core1, so that long running commands on core 0 can happily have full power.
1 Like