Using Programming Editor with FTDI Driver

[kennethm]

Hi,

I recently bought a USB to TTL serial UART FTDI interface board so that i could connect my picaxe project and power it via USB. The FTDI driver provided turns the board into a virtual com port.(very similar in functionality to the USB adapter that Rev-Ed offer.) However the programming editor refuses to find the picaxe hardware, when I attempt to download my program, giving me the usual error message 'Hardware not Found...'.

I initally suspected that something was wrong with my circuit, so I connected it to the Usb adapter and the download worked fine. I then checked the interface board by connecting the TX and RX together to create a loopback, and tested it via hyperterminal, which was also successful. After download, using the Picaxe's serin and serout allowed me to communicate via the board.

So I'm suspecting that the FTDI driver is incompatible with the editor. Did anyone else have a similar problem like this ?

Kenneth

 

[Dippy]

A USB adaptor on a board? Thats interesting, what part number is that?

As I have only used the USB cable (FTDI) AXE027, I can only suggest that you download the drivers/unzip/install.
The AXE027 drivers are on Rev-Ed's site.

 

[kennethm]

The board I'm using uses the FT232R chip. It is very similar to what Spark Fun Electronics have for sale

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=718

only I bought mine from ebay.

 

[Technical]

Your polarity will be wrong. You need to invert both TX and RX e.g. using NOT gates between USB and PICAXE.

The AXE027 contains a specially prepared FTDI part that does this inversion internally.

 

[kennethm]

Thanks Technical.