Hello Michael, I have created a LoRa P2P pair of Radio’s 2 with Arduino 1.8.5 IDE which still functions when powered by an external power source. I subsequently updated my Arduino IDE to 1.8.12 and now I cannot communicate with my pair of Naked MEGA units via the IDE via usb, yet the board manage selection indicates it connectedd to a Arduino Mega or Mega 2560???
When I am connected to Tera Term, it indicates I am connected to Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge (COM7), yet I can not communicate to either Naked MEGA module via the IDE or Tera Term application since I upgraded???
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated,
Paul Wilkie
@do_not_give_in Welcome to the RobotShop Community! For your own safety, we removed your telephone number and direct email (people can always send you a private message and you can share it with them there). Regarding your issue, hopefully someone from the community might know the differences in the update and help you narrow down the issue.
Hi! I’m new to the board and to Lynxmotion products, but I have used serial comms since the '70s. The command set is static and pretty much unchanged for years. When you update the software, though, you open yourself to the preferences of the programmers, often without warning, explanation, or documentation. Still, it doesn’t sound like you changed any hardware or firmware, so that leaves a configuration issue in the IDE. I’m betting it’s the baud rate.
The IDE has found the board, in theory, but you cannot communicate. Okay. The board identification process is different than and separate from the serial comms process. The communication parameters are essentially fixed for the ID process, but entirely configurable for the comms. If you are sure that the board, UART, and computer are all working on the same Serial Port, my best guess would be that you were relying on a baud rate to remain static and it got changed in the upgrade. Generally, the default will be 9600, but almost always gets cranked to 115.2k or higher in the real world. It’s been a while since I used the IDE, but I know you can set the baud rate in the preferences or the menu. You might also be able to change the baud rate of the board programmatically. If that’s possible, I would always hard code the rate into any code you put on the board so that you know it is working with you and for you, rather than with the default and for whoever coded the firmware!
Hope some of this helped. Serial comms are great when they work and hell when they don’t. Feel free to PM me if you want more help trouble shooting, even if we wind up posting back here to do it. That way the next poor guy or gal learns from our challenges.
Good luck!
Cal
