Well The setup is a device called the SR4 which takes serial print data to manipulate video, audio. The connection is a 6 pin serial port from the Sr4 to the arduino (Ng 168). I'm pretty sure that I fried one with the connection because the TX and RX lights are forever fully on and bright, thus I cant burn anything new on it or do much at all.
The main problem was that the chip was getting hot, and im guessing its the Transfer and receive going far too fast? I feel like its not a power or short problem. I am giving the board 5v so I'm not sure what it could be at this point.
You're not giving much to go on.
Is the serial data at RS232 voltage levels, or TTL?
If RS232, where/how are you doing the level shift?
What is the bit rate?
Can you provide a link to the manual for this device?
The Sr4 has serial output, Rs485. The 1st board I used was the arduino NG168 and we connected it to the SR4 through a custom serial cable 6pin - 6pin. thats when the board like flashed and now the TX and RX jsut go nuts and are really bright,board cant be restarted or code uploaded or usb recognized
so we switched gears to the RBBB decimilia.
the person that got us the cable labled each connections color and I cut the cable and soldered it to a header. all of the apropriate serial arduino pins are going to the right serial wires.
I think one problem might be that my code is lacking some serial functions. All I have are prints and the serial begin9600. I believe that the sr4 has that too.
The chip is getting hot as well so im thinking it could be a short somewhere, Im going to test the output voltage of the Sr4 because it might be more then 5 if it was wired wrongly.