Arduino bits n pieces - FTDI clones/SIM900

[petez69]

Hi Folks

This is unrelated to the plugin however still arduino. I've been using a SIM900 shield via a USB/TTL converter for SMS messages and I think I've sorted most of the issues. My primary issue ended up being the clone FTDI chip on the USB/TTL device, what a piece of rubbish that thing is...very mixed results with it just stopping to work and then the driver cant find the device....I had been using this device to load code into the Nano & ESP8226 device.

After lots of discussion with an ebay seller in Australia, he advised to use the CP2102 device instead. I've had a look at them and the device with micro usb looks very neat, I can built it into a small case with a ESP device if needed.

Does anyone have recommendations as to what they have that just works ?

I'm going to do a writeup on the SIM900 device shortly, need to do a little more investigation of how to start my device after a power start, there are so many variants...but for less than $20AUD, its very cool...

Thumbs up to Gavin for helping me with his SMS plugin :-)

Pete

[AllanMar]

Hi Folks

This is unrelated to the plugin however still arduino. I've been using a SIM900 shield via a USB/TTL converter for SMS messages and I think I've sorted most of the issues. My primary issue ended up being the clone FTDI chip on the USB/TTL device, what a piece of rubbish that thing is...very mixed results with it just stopping to work and then the driver cant find the device....I had been using this device to load code into the Nano & ESP8226 device.

After lots of discussion with an ebay seller in Australia, he advised to use the CP2102 device instead. I've had a look at them and the device with micro usb looks very neat, I can built it into a small case with a ESP device if needed.

Does anyone have recommendations as to what they have that just works ?

I'm going to do a writeup on the SIM900 device shortly, need to do a little more investigation of how to start my device after a power start, there are so many variants...but for less than $20AUD, its very cool...

Thumbs up to Gavin for helping me with his SMS plugin :-)

Pete

I use CP2102's without problem. Although I've never had much of a problem with any of the cheap ones (cheapest are usually CH340G) under Windows (MAC can be problematic with those).

If you want the best you should get a real FTDI chipset one though.

[petez69]

I had some pl2303hx turn up, they seem to work very good...