Is there a good free(or low cost) serial monitor/analyzer (not a terminal emulator) anyone is using and pleased with?
Is anyone using FreeSerialAnalyzer?
(What does "Grace period: 4 Days" mean if this app is free with no purchase option?)
Or: Simple Term SE?
I really hated to spend $99 for hobby use.
Any suggestions appreciated.
If you are looking for a serial terminal to use with Arduino there are several free programs:
TerraTerm
There are probably more.
Thanks groundFungus
TerraTerm and Putty are simply like better Hyperterminal it looks like.
RealTerm can Spy and log the data, but they want a donation to get the Spy drivers, and a bunch of people are saying they are not getting the drivers emailed back after making their donation.
What do you want to do with a "serial port monitor"?
I'm trying to setup an UNO as a Modbus Master.
I am simply trying to scan the 32-inputs of a Modbus module.
Testing with Radzio Modbus Master Simulator, my 32 inputs work perfectly, but I can't get the HEX frame encoding worked out to scan the 32 ports like the Radzio Modbus Master Simulator.
I can get a single response back using my UNO, but I need to scan all 32 inputs constantly.
I want to see the (HEX frame) exchange from the Radzio Modbus Master Simulator to the 32-input board, so I can write code to emulate that using the Uno.
Define "scan" in this context... do you mean you want to view non-printable, non-ASCII data?
By Scan the 32 inputs, I mean to Poll each input, one-by-one using a Hex Frame of 8 bytes, or reading holding register numbers sequentially.
See: Modbus protocol explained a bit here.
Terminal emulators don't have that functionality.
Apparently this one and many others do have serial monitor/analyzer/logging functionality, I have used them before.
Like this one: here
I would not call that a terminal emulator, but hey, what's in a name? You've asked for a free one, if nobody here knows that is end of story. Maybe someone who knows will eventually post. But the chances are slim.
While it's talking to an application?
So you need a modbus analyzer with "sniffing" capability. That's a pretty specialized tool to give a broad heading like "Serial Port Monitor/analyzer", and I doubt that enough people here use that sort of functionality that you'll get meaningful responses. The last time I used an actual serial analyzer was back when they were $10k+ pieces of equipment 
Since you're using an Uno, you can potentially tap into the serial port with ... another Arduino. A Small Matter of Programming later, Bob's your uncle!
@Ashton having read through this particular discussion, i'm not clear on what you are looking for.
There are quite a few free serial port monitoring tools out there:
I used Hercules for a lot of my serial monitoring. It doesn't understand Modbus but it does display the data in hexadecimal for you to decode later.
I also have a sketch that runs on an UNO that knows a little bit about Modbus, in that it can insert a newline between each Modbus packet. It makes it a bit easier to see what's going on. You would still need a PC app to display/capture the more friendly human readable serial output.
Is there a good free(or low cost) serial monitor/analyzer anyone is using and pleased with? Is anyone using FreeSerialAnalyzer 2?
There are many free and low-cost serial monitor/analyzer tools available that you can use for hobby use. Here are some options that you might find useful:
Simple Term SE 1 is also a popular serial terminal program, but it is not free. It has a one-time purchase price of $99. However, it offers features such as protocol analyzer and graphical plotting that may be useful for hobby use.
Overall, there are many options available for free and low-cost serial terminal programs that should meet your hobby use needs.
I'm now using Radzio! Modbus Master Simulator and Modbus Poll. Modbus Poll has a Communication viewer to see the tx/rx data.
My biggest question now is using one of the Modbus libraries, there are few details given in the actual use, like polling the Read Holding Registers (function 03).
Using a hex query frame used by Modbuss Poll, It gives a really long hex response that has a 1 or 0 for input on/off status, oddly only on the even-numbered array values. See below.
000202-Tx:01 03 00 80 00 20 45 FA
000203-Rx:01 03 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 08 28
The 01 at the end represents input port 32 'ON'.
But, using Arduino to send/tx the exact above tx query, actually works, except the last two inputs (31 & 32) never display when on. Not sure why. 32-input module instructions below if anyone is interested.
N4DIH32_N4DIM32 Protocol.pdf (681.7 KB)
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