Serial buffer or faster processing?

Projects Programming
8

What could then be a possible way to correctly read from serial?

You need start and end markers on the packets. Then, you need some code like this:

#define SOP '<'
#define EOP '>'

bool started = false;
bool ended = false;

char inData[80];
byte index;

void setup()
{
   Serial.begin(57600);
   // Other stuff...
}

void loop()
{
  // Read all serial data available, as fast as possible
  while(Serial.available() > 0)
  {
    char inChar = Serial.read();
    if(inChar == SOP)
    {
       index = 0;
       inData[index] = '\0';
       started = true;
       ended = false;
    }
    else if(inChar == EOP)
    {
       ended = true;
       break;
    }
    else
    {
      if(index < 79)
      {
        inData[index] = inChar;
        index++;
        inData[index] = '\0';
      }
    }
  }

  // We are here either because all pending serial
  // data has been read OR because an end of
  // packet marker arrived. Which is it?
  if(started && ended)
  {
    // The end of packet marker arrived. Process the packet

    // Reset for the next packet
    started = false;
    ended = false;
    index = 0;
    inData[index] = '\0';
  }
}

In your case, L is the start of the packet and : is the end of the packet, and the packets are always the same size (7 chars; 4 of them are data). Parsing them is going to be trivial.