You can probably get around the hardwareSerial requirement, but I haven't gone back to try that again as I had a mega lying around. The levelshifting was because the arduino I was trying at the time was 3.3v. I wrote up what I did here: http://www.hexagonalscience.com/word/?p=77 I'll add more details after I get back to the lab. let me know if you need more info.