Serial not working if Using Arduino Shields requiring Serial on pins 0/1

Official Hardware UNO Family UNO Q
1

Been testing some old shields with the Arduino Q - EasyVr shield and a XBee shield.

Going to talk about the XBee shield. Using a simple pass through sketch:

#include <Arduino_RouterBridge.h>

#define XBee Serial
#define pcSerial Monitor

void setup()
{
  XBee.begin(57600);
  pcSerial.begin(57600);

}

void loop()
{
  if (pcSerial.available())

  { 
    XBee.write(pcSerial.read());

   }

  if (XBee.available())
  { 
   pcSerial.write(XBee.read());
   }

}

Then using the XCTU app on the PC and doing a search, the app fails to find the attached Xbee on the shield.

However, if I try it on the Giga using

//#include <Arduino_RouterBridge.h>

#define XBee Serial1
#define pcSerial Serial

The Giga has no problem finding the XBee using the XCTU app.

This can be an issue with any shields that use Serial which I have a couple of which are now useless.

2

Hi @Merlin513,

at the moment pin TX/RX are in use by the Zephyr console. In order to use them as traditional TX/RX pins you need to disable the console feature in the Zephyr core / bootloader.

After commenting out these lines https://github.com/arduino/zephyr/blob/f7a59afe5c3558a290915337dea5cedf61d97426/boards/arduino/uno_q/arduino_uno_q_defconfig#L9, you need to recompile the core and the bootloader by following the instructions at the following links:

After that, you must flash the new bootloader using the arduino-cli with the burn-bootloader command.

Let me know if you can get it working with these instructions.

Cheers

3

@manchuino

Thanks - didn’t think about that. And yeah already know how to recompile the core - been doing that a long time with zephyr boards :slight_smile:

For a quick test can I just do this from IDE 2.3.7 if I am not using app lab.

Other question - most users are not going to go through the effort of the effort of doing this is there any plan for doing changing pins 0/1 from Serial to Serial and the just use Monitor to print?

Also once I change this where will debug messages from zephyr show up - still on Serial?

Thanks

Mike

And Merry Christmas.

4

Just commented out the Console config options in zephyr and recompiled and burned bootloader through the IDE and still didn’t work.

Also did a double check on the GIGA config - just as a note the giga has as well and has

#Console

CONFIG_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=y
5

@Merlin513

double-check you are using burn-bootloader or the IDE with the correct core selected: it must be the one from GitHub with your changes. Also, try to comment out the SERIAL conf a few lines above.

Cheers.

6

Yep I am using the core from the last release that I downloaded from github.

I ran a simple test sketch

#include <Arduino_RouterBridge.h>

void setup() {
Serial.begin(57600);
Monitor.begin(57600);
}

void loop() {
Serial.println("Hello Serial");
Monitor.println("Hello Monitor");
delay(1000);

}

Just to check where things get printed to.

With the following config:

#enable uart driver
CONFIG_SERIAL=y

#enable GPIO
CONFIG_GPIO=y

#console
CONFIG_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=y

“Hello Monitor” is printed to Serial (pins 0/1) and Hello Monitor is printed to IDE Serial Monitor

If I just comment out the config console, still seeing prints to both Serial and Monitor. If I run the pass through sketch, it does not find the device. Note I am seeing AT commands getting sent over Serial: APe+++ATAP, for instance.

With serial and console commented out seeing the same things. still not recognizing the xbee on Serial

Hooking up a LA to pins 0/1 I see the atp command but nothing is being acknowledged

image
image1274Ă—299 17.8 KB

On the giga I see the atp command and the response

image
image522Ă—161 7.68 KB

image
image1345Ă—261 26.7 KB

7

Actually just remembered even if change the board config it is still in the prj.conf file for all

#zephyr boards
#SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
#This file contains selected Kconfig options for the application.

CONFIG_USERSPACE=n
CONFIG_ARM_MPU=n

CONFIG_LOG=y
CONFIG_LOG_MODE_IMMEDIATE=y

CONFIG_HEAP_MEM_POOL_SIZE=32768
CONFIG_MAIN_STACK_SIZE=32768

CONFIG_ARDUINO_API=y

CONFIG_SHELL=y
CONFIG_SHELL_STACK_SIZE=2048
CONFIG_SHELL_CMD_BUFF_SIZE=2048
CONFIG_SHELL_LOG_LEVEL_DBG=n

CONFIG_LLEXT=y
CONFIG_LLEXT_LOG_LEVEL_ERR=y
CONFIG_LLEXT_HEAP_SIZE=32
CONFIG_LLEXT_SHELL=y
CONFIG_LLEXT_STORAGE_WRITABLE=y
CONFIG_LLEXT_EXPORT_DEVICES=y

CONFIG_LLEXT_EDK=y
CONFIG_LLEXT_EDK_FORMAT_TAR_ZSTD=y

CONFIG_GPIO=y
CONFIG_PINCTRL=y
CONFIG_I2C=y
CONFIG_SPI=y

CONFIG_SERIAL=y
CONFIG_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=y

CONFIG_FLASH=y
CONFIG_FLASH_MAP=y

CONFIG_CPP=y
CONFIG_STD_CPP17=y
CONFIG_GLIBCXX_LIBCPP=y
CONFIG_REQUIRES_FULL_LIBC=y
CONFIG_CBPRINTF_FP_SUPPORT=y

CONFIG_MAIN_THREAD_PRIORITY=14
CONFIG_INPUT_THREAD_PRIORITY_OVERRIDE=y
CONFIG_INPUT_THREAD_PRIORITY=0

CONFIG_EVENTS=y

and I really dont want to change it in the prj.conf file since it is affecting all boards.

8

Note Commented out Console configs in both places but XBeeis still not responding.

UPDATE Tried commenting out Serial and console configs but still no luck.

9

Ok for any one interested did manage to get the q to work with an xbee however it is not working with the XBee shield. It does seem to work with this type of adapter hooked up directly to the 3.3v pin:
Amazon.com: Waveshare UART Communication Board Supports XBee Connectivity : Electronics

image
image529Ă—472 77.2 KB