Hi there,
I was wondering if anyone has tried using a bluetooth serial adapter on the Smoothie Board? I have both the Adafruit board based on the nrf8001 chip that communicates over SPI and a TinySine which is a cheap UART > bluetooth 4.0 adapter.
I’d like to get one hooked up to my Smoothieboard with the intention that I’d be able to have some GCode on the SD card and have the bluetooth start / stop things from an iPad.
Couple of questions relating to that…
Where are the SPI pins on the smoothie board and does the firmware receive commands over SPI like it does the UART?
This may seem like a stupid question, but just to make sure… the UART connection is the one next to the usb connector labeled “Serial” and it has 6 pins but only four are labeled… TX/RX/ V+ and GND, correct? Simple enough…. what voltage is V+ and what voltages are TX / RX?
The SPI port is close to the microcontroller ( you can read MISO and MOSI etc there ), but it won’t work like a serial port ( unless you do some modifications in the code ).
You need to use the UART ( close to the USB port, labelled “Serial”, indeed ).
Now the Xmas/NY rush is over, I am revisiting the provision of Bluetooth to the smoothieboard.
Just some further questions:
You said you can use 5V or 3.3V for TX or RX, but what about +Ve? - is there any procedure to follow, or will it auto-range? (not an electronics person, so forgive me if my terminology is incorrect). I noticed on the underside of the board that there is a 3.3V and 5V set of pads leading to the vcc pin. Do I need to put a solder bridge on one of those?
Is the UART shared with the USB? If so, if I am powered by USB, there would be some contention with the USB tty? I guess if I’m not attached to the USB tty, there shouldn’t be an issue.
Hello
Can I use another microcontroller (like Arduino) to send commands (GCodes) to my smoothie board throgh those
Serial pins close to USB port, and run it?
I looked at the schematic and yes I see the jumper that needs soldered to switch between 3.3 and 5v for the V+ line on the UART pins. Just waiting on my Recom R-78E and I’ll get the whole lot soldered at once.
Yup, I was thinking that even if the Smoothieboard did take commands over SPI like the UART port it still would’t work… the Adafruit Bluetooth module needs special drivers and also a spare interrupt pin… making it all very complicated, so I think I’ll just stick with the TinySine UART adapter.
Babakmanafi - Yes you could, and its quite easy. I’ve kind of done it. I’ve used an FTDI chip like this www.sparkfun.com / products / 9873 hooked up to the UART pins and it worked… UARTs quite simple and most Microcontrollers have hardware to do it. INFACT that gives me an idea if I wanted to use the Adafruit adapter… get an arduino to receive the commands off the adapter and then send them over UART. Brilliant!
I haven’t received my Smoothieboard yet, but I did install a BT SPP on my TinyG - it was simplicity itself and works great.
You need to use an Arduino or USB>UART to program the generic Chinese BT module - I prefer the CZ-HC-05 module, it’s small, has all the right pins broken out to set it into command mode and has proven reliable in many devices.
I have the whole process documented - if you want to go the Chinese $4 BT module route, give me a shout.
I just wrote a complete how-to for making your SmoothieBoard BT-enabled, but the sucky wikidot forum won’t allow me to post it as the pictures constitute an external link, apparently.
If anyone wants it, let me know and I will send it to you.