Running out of serial connections

ArduPlane
1

We are using 5 serial devices on the Cube:

  • GPS
  • Emlid reach PPK
  • Telemetry
  • Lidar
  • Ping ADS-B receiver

But only 4 serial ports are available.

How to solve this problem?

In other words, where are serial 5 and 6?

1 Like
2

There are 5 right? Using the CONS (UART 5) port?

3

Ah, OK. That should be serial 5. Do you know where to find serial 6?

4

I know of only 5 serial ports.

5

I believe the functionality of using an Aux pin as a serial port is coming (for serial 6, etc.).

6

Thanks a lot. For the time being I need 5, so I have my solution. I didn’t realise that this cons pin was serial 5.

7

Thanks for the info. That would be great for future devices.

8
9

Thanks for the info, but I don’t consider that an option. Too much extra hardware which makes the system less reliable. Right now I have the 5 I needed, and if no 6 comes available on one of the aux pins, I’ll be totally happy. But thanks for pointing me in that direction.

10

1 simple teensy board with a mavlink forwarder code, adds 3 hw serial plus you can use softserial. So you can use devices that use Mavlink for serial comms on a single Cube port.

2 Likes
11

@Eosbandi Have you done this or is it theory? Do you have code for this? I’m not super familiar with teensy, I only know of it.

12

Done in a bigger project. Will try to extract relevant code and publish it.

1 Like
13

@Verloop

Yes , CANBUS & MAVLINK are adding components and if you want to keep it minimal you could use an I2C Lidar ?

1 Like
14

Reviving this to ask if Serial 6 is alive on the cube with chibios (3.9.x), and what port/pins that translates to?

16

I see it listed as a param in my SITL running 3.9.7, haven’t loaded to a physical board yet.

18

Cool! now does this functionaly apply to the pixhawk cube and where do I plug something in to be on serial 6?