Olimex Support Forum

OLinuXino Android / Linux boards and System On Modules => A13 => Topic started by: camdbug on September 02, 2014, 08:23:03 PM

Title: Using USB-Serial-Cable-F on a Mac...?
Post by: camdbug on September 02, 2014, 08:23:03 PM
Just received my first set of kit (actually an A20, but as the A13 has been around longer thought I'd ask here first); has anyone experience/knowledge of how to use the USB-Serial-Cable-F on a Mac?

No obvious tty ports which would indicate the cable. Will obviously keep poking around, but if anyone has the answer it could save me some time.

Not the end of the world if not, I'll just try it via an Ubuntu VM otherwise (or walk through to the other room and plug it into the Ubuntu box there, but that means I have to actually stand up and don't have it and the screen in front of me any more).

Title: Re: Using USB-Serial-Cable-F on a Mac...?
Post by: MikkoSaarisalo on February 28, 2015, 02:58:19 PM
+1 for this question.

Not a deal breaker, but would be nice to use this cable also on a MAC.

cheers
-mikko
Title: Re: Using USB-Serial-Cable-F on a Mac...?
Post by: JohnS on February 28, 2015, 04:26:47 PM
I feel there must be MAC forums which might help with how to get its OS to see a USB device and do the right thing with it.

Or is Apple anti-USB?

John
Title: Re: Using USB-Serial-Cable-F on a Mac...?
Post by: MikkoSaarisalo on February 28, 2015, 11:24:51 PM
FTDI cable works just fine.  No problem in connecting Mac to any serial interface. 

The problem is that the USB2Serial conversion technology used in this very Olimex cable is not known to OSX and thus it does not recognize it.  I bought a couple of these Olimex cables and noticed after the fact that I am not able to use these. 

cheers
-mikko
Title: Re: Using USB-Serial-Cable-F on a Mac...?
Post by: progmetalbg on March 01, 2015, 01:53:25 PM
Prolific Technology Inc PL2303 chip is used in Olimex cables.
MacOS X drivers: http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProduct.aspx?p_id=229&pcid=41
and also this page: http://demin.ws/blog/english/2012/07/10/usb-serial-console-for-rpi-on-macosx-olimex-usb-serial-cable/

Title: Re: Using USB-Serial-Cable-F on a Mac...?
Post by: gazum on March 01, 2015, 06:12:21 PM

After you install Prolific driver (link is in the previous post), plug in the cable. You should see tty.usbserial device.

ls -l /dev/tty.usbserial

Then just use your favorite terminal program to connect

screen /dev/tty.usbserial 115200

or

brew install picocom
picocom -b 115200 /dev/tty.usbserial
Title: Re: Using USB-Serial-Cable-F on a Mac...?
Post by: MikkoSaarisalo on March 02, 2015, 09:12:00 PM
Thanks a lot guys! Its all serving well now. 

(Y)

-mikko