- Sun Nov 21, 2010 7:57 pm
#114021
Is there a board out there that has one of the standard USB to serial converter chips on it... but with *two* serial ports rather than one? E.g., the FTDI FT2232? I've been thinking this could be quite useful in the following form: A small board with a mini-USB connector on it and then 2 10-pin (or so) .1"-spaced headers, one for each serial port. You'd then plug on a daughter card provide various different bits of functionality to the board:
-- A pair of DB-9 connectors (i.e., the daughter board would just add Max232-like level shifters). Alternatively, mechanically things could be arranged to allow two daughter boards, as arguably one might want, e.g., a true RS-232 port along with a logic-level serial port.
-- A "sniffer" board, where you still have two DB-9 connectors, but they're intended to go in-line of a regular serial connection and both Tx and Rx of that connection are "sniffed" and sent to Rx 1/Rx 2 of the main board. (And presumably Tx 1/Tx 2 are logically "added" to the regular connection as well.) <-- This use is what really made me think of this; I'm doing some serial sniffing right now, and while it works fine to use two USB to serial adapters, it's definitely a bit messy with all the cables and needing two USB ports and all.)
-- Custom serial interfaces for, e.g., cell phones, radios/media receivers, etc. (E.g., for Sirius satellite radios, there's an 8-pin mini-DIN connector that's just serial Tx/Rx at 5V logic levels, power, and left/right analog audio... you'd break out the power and audio and route Tx/Rx back to the main board.)
Anyone else have any interest in this? If a handful of people are interested, I can make some of these myself and sell the ones I don't need (...although we're probably talking ~$40 boards here, given that I'd make all of 10-25 or so).
Thanks,
---Joel Koltner
-- A pair of DB-9 connectors (i.e., the daughter board would just add Max232-like level shifters). Alternatively, mechanically things could be arranged to allow two daughter boards, as arguably one might want, e.g., a true RS-232 port along with a logic-level serial port.
-- A "sniffer" board, where you still have two DB-9 connectors, but they're intended to go in-line of a regular serial connection and both Tx and Rx of that connection are "sniffed" and sent to Rx 1/Rx 2 of the main board. (And presumably Tx 1/Tx 2 are logically "added" to the regular connection as well.) <-- This use is what really made me think of this; I'm doing some serial sniffing right now, and while it works fine to use two USB to serial adapters, it's definitely a bit messy with all the cables and needing two USB ports and all.)
-- Custom serial interfaces for, e.g., cell phones, radios/media receivers, etc. (E.g., for Sirius satellite radios, there's an 8-pin mini-DIN connector that's just serial Tx/Rx at 5V logic levels, power, and left/right analog audio... you'd break out the power and audio and route Tx/Rx back to the main board.)
Anyone else have any interest in this? If a handful of people are interested, I can make some of these myself and sell the ones I don't need (...although we're probably talking ~$40 boards here, given that I'd make all of 10-25 or so).
Thanks,
---Joel Koltner