Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

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oisisi
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Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#1 Post by oisisi » 04 Mar 2020, 15:49

I have a Wemos d1 mini module that is struggling with wifi connectivity. There is a Raspberry Pi next to it which is doing fine. I thought I could simply hook up the Wemos to one of the Pi's USB ports and parse the serial output. I direct GPIO/UART connection does not work in my environment. I would like to use the USB connection for power and communication. This leads to two challenges:

- It seems that each plugin logs data differently. Is there a more standard way? I looked at rules to translate sensor input put it seems there is no way to write to serial. (I already use rules to create nice JSON MQTT payloads.)

- It seems the Raspberries I tried it with (with the latest buster, a tad older stretch) can't communicate with the CH340 chip. It is recognized but minicom shows no chatter. Do we still need to compile drivers or am I missing something?

Any constructive input is welcome.

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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#2 Post by TD-er » 04 Mar 2020, 16:01

The logs were never meant to output data, but more for diagnostic needs.
But I guess what you're looking for is a new kind of controller that can output data to serial in some formatted way.

Something like this:
tasknr, pluginID, nr_values, val1, val2, val3, val4

And then either in CSV notation (e.g. ; as separator), or some other format.

oisisi
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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#3 Post by oisisi » 04 Mar 2020, 16:10

Yes, CSV or JSON would work. I'm ready to write something that can parse the output of my three sensors so standardized output has less priority for me. I haven't checked yet if CMDs for my RGB LED are read from the serial input but that is also something I can work around.

The bigger challenge is that serial communication via USB doesn't seem to be working with the Wemos's chip.

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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#4 Post by TD-er » 04 Mar 2020, 20:09

oisisi wrote: 04 Mar 2020, 16:10 [...]
The bigger challenge is that serial communication via USB doesn't seem to be working with the Wemos's chip.
If you try to power the ESP from an USB port on a Raspberry Pi, then I would not be surprised about it.
Try to use a powered USB hub.
The ESP may take quite a big power surge when connecting to WiFi. Wouldn't be surprised if that would set the Pi into some error state.

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ThomasB
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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#5 Post by ThomasB » 05 Mar 2020, 01:22

I have a Wemos d1 mini module that is struggling with wifi connectivity.
Any chance your Wemos WiFi shows a reasonable RSSI value, but it's experiencing browser access problems (slow page loading and/or timeouts)? Or too many disconnect/reconnects?

If the answer is yes, then see the tail end of this discussion:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7474#p42805

- Thomas

oisisi
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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#6 Post by oisisi » 05 Mar 2020, 09:22

ThomasB wrote: 05 Mar 2020, 01:22 Any chance your Wemos WiFi shows a reasonable RSSI value, but it's experiencing browser access problems (slow page loading and/or timeouts)? Or too many disconnect/reconnects?
Thanks for the hint but I don't think this applies. The module was working fine for several months. I now changed my wifi setup and it seems that now the signal is not strong enough. A serial connection would also help with troubleshooting

oisisi
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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#7 Post by oisisi » 05 Mar 2020, 09:38

TD-er wrote: 04 Mar 2020, 20:09 The ESP may take quite a big power surge when connecting to WiFi. Wouldn't be surprised if that would set the Pi into some error state.
Thanks for the remark. I measured it, the Pi supplies enough power for the module. I have the suspicion that it is the USB/serial interface which is causing issues.

Regrettably, I can not use a recent default image since I am using an IR sensor the plugin for which is not in the default images with the temperature and light sensors and the RGB LED I am also using. I compiled my own image in the past but my build environment abandoned me together with the hard drive it resided on. It will be a while until I can build a new one. Then I plan to use a Wemos d1 pro which should have better connectivity with its ceramic antenna.

oisisi
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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges [SOLVED]

#8 Post by oisisi » 05 Mar 2020, 11:25

I figured it out. It was rather simple. I used minicom for serial communication and one flag made the difference. I wrongly used '-d /dev/ttyUSB0' rather than '-D /dev/ttyUSB0'. Next: writing a parser and disabling wifi.

Gevorgun
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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#9 Post by Gevorgun » 07 Mar 2022, 00:32

Don't have a cable to connect your computer to the network permanently? That would solve many of your problems.

oisisi
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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#10 Post by oisisi » 07 Mar 2022, 09:29

Gevorgun wrote: 07 Mar 2022, 00:32 Don't have a cable to connect your computer to the network permanently? That would solve many of your problems.
You replied to message that is two years old. I solved my serial issues and upgraded my wifi and no longer have the issues.

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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#11 Post by TD-er » 08 Mar 2022, 20:22

That's a spammer.
Typical clues:
- Reply to an old topic, with a hardly on-topic reply
- Post count is very low

With the info I can see as admin:
- Email is listed on stopforumspam.com
- IP is listed on stopforumspam.com

Incentive:
- Post a reply which is not deleted by some admin
- After a while alter text in the post to link to some site to let Google think it is a reliable site


Typically I delete about 20 of those accounts per week.

oisisi
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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#12 Post by oisisi » 02 Apr 2022, 07:15

TD-er wrote: 08 Mar 2022, 20:22 That's a spammer.
That one never came back but a new one popped up and did exactly what you predicted. I reported it.

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Re: Serial connection in place of wifi, challenges

#13 Post by TD-er » 02 Apr 2022, 10:16

Yep, those spammers are quite predictable and extremely annoying.

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