I have been experimenting with RF communication for the last couple of weeks.
Trouble is I can't see what is going on.
So what I am needing is to have a couple of serial monitors going at the same time on one PC.
It seems like something like this item should help.
But I am not sure so this is why I am asking about this.
Basically what I am wanting is to be able to have 2 Arduinos attached to the PC at the same time using a hub(hopefully a non-powered hub would work). While they are attached I want to be able to modify/upload sketches to each Arduino without unplugging anything. I also want to be able to send data to one of the Arduinos via a WPF application. And while all that is going on I would like to have two serial monitors running so I can use Serial.print to see what each Arduino is receiving/transmitting over the various RF units.
So it seems like 3 USB connections with one using the item(or similar) I linked above. And if I use a Mega as the Arduino I am interfacing with the WPF I shouldn't need to use software.serial (maybe?).
So is something along these lines possible?
And I would like recommendations for a freeware serial monitor program that works with multiple instances running in Windows 8.1 that I can turn off ASCII conversion so if I am passing number data over the radios I can see the numbers in the monitor from Serial.print().
Just for testing I have three arduinos connected to a USB hub, and have had two of them operating at the same time testing serial communication between the two. I open a separate instance of the IDE for each and use the two serial monitors to send and receive the communications.
Thank you for the replies.
I have ran into an issue with the Arduino IDE.
I have 2 sketches open.
The first sketch is for an Arduino in a transmitter role. A Uno on COM3.
The second sketch is for a Mega on COM5 in a receiver role.
The issue is that the IDE will change the board/port assignments on both sketches when trying to change the assignments on one. That is if I use the tools menu and set the transmitter sketch to board Uno and port COM3 the receiver sketch gets changed to these setting as well.
This makes it so I can only ever have one IDE serial monitor open at one time.
I open serial monitor in the IDE on the receiver sketch. The serial monitor opens and displays the start-up code from the receiver sketch.
So I then try to open the serial monitor on the transmitter sketch. The board and port assignments in the transmitter sketch were changed when I uploaded the receiver sketch so the serial monitor button closes the serial monitor window for the receiver and reopens it using the receiver sketch still, even though I am in the transmitter sketch.
So I start again.
I make sure setting are for receiver sketch, and start the serial monitor in the receiver sketch.
I then switch to the transmitter sketch.
Change the board to Uno under tools.
Serial monitor from receiver sketch is still going.
I then change the COM port in the transmitter sketch tools.
Serial monitor from receiver sketch closes. /sigh
So how do I have each instance of the running Arduino IDE maintain a unique board/port setting?
You have an icon on the desktop (or elsewhere) that runs an instance of the IDE. Use the icon to open another instance of the IDE. Don't use File-Open or File-New, in an already open IDE, to start a new IDE and/or load a sketch. Open a separate instance of the IDE and then load the other sketch into the new instance. Then you can have different serial ports for each open IDE.
Opening an ino file (if associated with the IDE) will also open a new instance of the IDE.
DrDiettrich:
Just a note on multiple IDE instances. An Apple user reported that he cannot start another instance of the IDE.
It has been reported that this is an issue with the most recent versions of the IDE. I still use 1.0.5 and don't have the issue. I haven't updated due to this issue being reported. There might be some workarounds.
Thanks all for the information.
Was a bit of a 'doh' moment. I have to do the exact same thing in Visual Studio to get two instances running.
Not sure why I did not consider doing that for the Arduino.
To answer my own question, I downloaded the latest 1.6.5 IDE and made two shortcuts on the desktop for the single arduino.exe file. The latest IDE works like the older IDE in this configuration. When the shortcuts are used, both will start up with the the selections for the last board/comport closed. Which board using which comport may need to be remembered and changed as needed when starting the IDEs.
zoomkat:
To answer my own question, I downloaded the latest 1.6.5 IDE and made two shortcuts on the desktop for the single arduino.exe file. The latest IDE works like the older IDE in this configuration. When the shortcuts are used, both will start up with the the selections for the last board/comport closed. Which board using which comport may need to be remembered and changed as needed when starting the IDEs.
Is there an advantage to using two shortcuts as opposed to just one?
I have just been using the same single shortcut in my start menu per instance of the IDE I am wanting to use.
It looks like from information here that each shortcut could be set up to do specific things. Like shortcut A could open an IDE with Nano/COM4 preselected and shortcut B could open an IDE instance with Mega/COM3 preselected.
Are you doing something like that with the shortcuts and command line options?
Thanks for answering this. I've struggled (stupidly) with the same issue, while working on a CANbus and RS-485 projects. I'm not sure how many times I accidentally uploaded an edited sketch to the wrong board. I am running IDE 1.6.12.