i admit: i love command line interfaces. because that gives me usually much more control than any gui (graphical user interface). i like the fact that they have put a uart interface on the riot board:

j18 uart on the riot board

the header is j18, and labeled as ‘debug’. but it is not really debug port, it is the console/uart to the system running on the board :-)

to connect it to a host pc, i need a level shifter or a uart-to-usb cdc converter.

a convenient one is available from element14 , and embest has a quickstart guide for it ( http://www.embest-tech.com/download/201406051241.html ).

uart8000-u

the converter gets connected to j18. the rx and tx lines need to be crossed as shown in the picture below:

uart8000-u connection to riot board

the uart8000-u uses a ftdi chip, and i already had drivers for it installed on my system, so everything installed automatically:

:idea: http://www.embest-tech.com/shop/product/uart8000-u.html provides drivers downloads for linux and windows.  mac users probably can get the drivers directly from http://www.ftdichip.com/ftdrivers.htm

installing device driver software

installing ft230x basic uart

device ready to use

connection to the board is with 115200 baud:

serial port settings for riot uart

with this, i have a working console and shell interface to the riot board:

working console and shell interface

:-)

summary

the riot board comes with a 3-pin header (tx, rx and gnd) which gives a console/uart connection to the board. any kind of uart-to-serial (usb cdc or rs-232) can be used, and using the uart8000-u cable is a convenient solution.

:idea: and as a last tip: i have found http://www.embest-tech.com/shop/star/riotboard.html which is a good information for schematics and other good information.

happy uarting :-)