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I bought an arduino-on-breadboard kit. I have several pc with serial ports, now I'm being told I need a usb to serial converter? I thought I was ready to start uploading sketches, please advise.

I'm able to understand serial communications, and capable of wiring a max232 chip into a breaduino if necessary, but I'm not sure it will work, so to save some time I'm asking, mostly because I was unable to figure it out with google searches alone.

PS: I also have a stk500 but then I would be out of the easiness of using arduino sketches and programming language, what I need is the fastest route to prototyping/testing my sketches.

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migrated from electronics.stackexchange.com Aug 12 '14 at 17:15

This question came from our site for electronics and electrical engineering professionals, students, and enthusiasts.
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The arduino IDE supports the stk500: arduino.cc/en/Hacking/Programmer –  Gerben Aug 12 '14 at 19:54

2 Answers 2

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enter image description hereAn RS232 port wired via a level converter (as you mentioned max232) and a 1uF capacitor between RTS and "Arduino reset pin" Getting started with Arduino.

The capacitor is to trigger a reset on the Arduino so the bootloader kicks in and awaits a "Arduino sketch" via the serial port.

Your setup is AKA "Arduino Bare bone".

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If your PCs have real RS-232 serial ports (rare these days), you can use those directly. Otherwise, you will need a USB<->RS-232 serial adaptor cable.

Correction: I thought my Arduino did have an RS-232 port, but I was thinking of another board. If your board only has a TTL-level serial port (ie. direct from the ATMega328), then you need either an RS-232 level translator, or a USB<->TTL serial cable. A suitable cable is available from Adafruit (and no doubt, others).

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Can you really connect a RS232 (either real or fake 0-5V ones) directly to a ATmega328 UART port? I thought one had to put a level converter in between them (ie. MAX232). –  Ricardo Aug 12 '14 at 18:40
    
The original Arduino models did have RS232 serial ports and connectors, rather than the USB connector and on-board USB-serial converter of today's boards. –  Chris Stratton Aug 12 '14 at 21:01

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