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[on:]

I am sending a large amount of data from a VB6 program to an Arduino thru the USB.  The com is much slower then I expected.   I have isolated the problem but don't know how to solve it.  

I have written a small test program in VB6 that outputs five characters to the com port and repeats four times.  When I look at the data received on the Arduino board with a scope I see the first five characters followed by about a 4 millisecond delay, then five more characters and another 4 ms delay, five more characters and another 4 ms delay then the last five characters.   It's that 4 ms delay that is causing all my problems.

When I run the same test program but output to com 1 (the hard com port on my computer) and look at the transmit pin with a scope I see all 20 characters come without any delay.  

I am using basic default com setting with a speed of 115200.  I am using the latest virtual com port driver from the FTDI web site.

Can anyone give me any suggestions on how to resolve this??

[Reply #1 on:]

post the arduino code.

[Reply #2 on:]

I'm sure it's not an Arduino code problem.  I am looking with my scope at the serial data that is coming out of the USB chip and going into pin 1.  That's where I am seeing this 4 ms delay.  It's got to be a USB thing. Either with the USB chip on the Arduino board or the virtual com port driver on the desktop computer.  

[Reply #3 on:]

Is the Arduino connected directly to the computer or through a hub?

Have you tried other USB ports on the computer?

How is the port initialized?  Is any flow control enabled?

[Reply #4 on:]

Thanks Coding Badly, those are all good questions.
It's connected directly to the computer, no hub.  I just tried a different USB port on the computer and it makes no difference.  Flow control is turned off.  I still have the 4 ms delay.

[Reply #5 on:]

If it's not too much trouble, try sending data in exactly 64 byte blocks.

These may help...

http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=76081&view=next

http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1170939903/0

[Reply #6 on:]

It looks like from my VB6 program I only get one opportunity to send data to the virtual com port once every 4 ms.   It's apparently a windows/USB thing and there is nothing I can do to change that.  I have rewritten my VB6 program to send larger blocks of data and that has helped.

Now that I am sending larger blocks of data I have another problem.  The RX butter on the Arduino is only 128 bytes.  Is there a way to increase it?  I would like to be able to set it to 256 bytes.

[Reply #7 on:]

It looks like from my VB6 program I only get one opportunity to send data to the virtual com port once every 4 ms.   It's apparently a windows/USB thing and there is nothing I can do to change that.  I have rewritten my VB6 program to send larger blocks of data and that has helped.

Now that I am sending larger blocks of data I have another problem.  The RX butter on the Arduino is only 128 bytes.  Is there a way to increase it?  I would like to be able to set it to 256 bytes.

[Reply #8 on:]

Did you try sending exactly 64 bytes?

The RX buffer on the Arduino is only 128 bytes.  Is there a way to increase it?

I suspect there is but it's beyond my experience.  Hopefully, someone else can provide some guidance.

[Reply #9 on:]

Look in  "Arduino/hardware/cores/arduino/HardwareSerial.cpp".

#define RX_BUFFER_SIZE 128
(line 34)

But beware, ATMega chips have very limited RAM, 1024 bytes.

The FT232 chip has a 128 byte transmit buffer so sending blocks of 64 bytes will keep both the FT232 buffer and the Arduino receive buffer from overflowing.

[Reply #10 on:]

Thanks guys,  I have been able to increase the RX butter by changing the RX_Butter_SIZE in HardwareSerial.cpp but I found that if in go over 256 then the Serial.available() command does not report out correctly.  

I was able to fix that by changing line 168 in HardwareSerial.cpp from  “uint8_t HardwareSerial::available(void)”   to  “uint16_t HardwareSerial::available(void)” .
And also changing line 50 in HardwareSerial.h from  “uint8_t available(void);”  to  “uint16_t available(void);” .

I can't believe that I figured that out on my own.  I am now running a 1024 byte buffer with no problems at all.   I have also bumped the com speed up to 230400 and it is still working with no data errors.  I didn't know little Arduino could run that fast.  

Note:  The actual RX buffer size is one less then what is in RX_BUFFER_SIZE.  
Example:  If you want a true 128 byte buffer use RX_BUFFER_SIZE 129.

[Reply #11 on:]

Now that's cool!

How much memory (RAM) is left for your programs other needs ?

[Reply #12 on:]

I don't know.  I never figured out how to tell.  The ATmega328 has 2K of RAM and I am using half of it for the buffer.  Fortunately my program does not use much.