USB board

Driver installation

With Windows, you must install VCP and D2XX drivers first. They are available for download on these pages:

https://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

https://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm

Select the files to download according to your system (x86 or x64) and install them on your computer.

How to connect the USB board to your computer

There are 2 micro-USB ports, but one of them is only used to manually update the board. The other one is the one we will use in this page.

The right USB port used on this page is the one at the opposite of the 2 Luos connectors.

How to use the USB board

Luos' USB board acts like a serial port on your system. To control your device, you have to get and set Json data into the serial port opened by the USB board. In order do that with pyluos, you can use the following python code:

from pyluos import Device
device = Device('COM13')
device.containers

On Windows

On Windows, a COM port is usually used (like COM1, COM2, COM3, etc.). It can be found in Device Manager (right-click on Start button), after it’s plugged:

Once the port is known, the connexion can be set on pyluos with python:

device = Device('COM27')

On MacOS

To list the available serial ports, use the following command line:

ls /dev/cu.usbserial-*

Once the port is known, the connexion can be set on pyluos with python:

device = Device('/dev/cu.usbserial-DN30VKKB')

On Linux

To list the available serial ports, type the following in a terminal:

dmesg | grep tty

Once the port is known, the connexion can be set on pyluos with python:

device = Device('/dev/ttyS0')

Serial connectivity with other languages

In order to communicate from a computer to a Luos network through a gate, a serial connection can be established. This serial connectivity must have the following parameters:

• Baudrate: 1,000,000 Bits/s
• 8 Bits per transfer
• 1 stop bit
• No parity bit
• Least significant bit sent first
• Non inverted

Although the connection can be made with Pyluos, the Python library, other languages can be used on the computer side. Here is a C Linux serial connection example:

void init_luos_comm(luos_t* m)
{
 m->serial_fd = open(SERIAL_PORT, O_RDWR);

 // Check for errors
 if (m->serial_fd < 0)
 {
     printf("Error %i from open: %s\n", errno, strerror(errno));
     return -1;
 }

 struct termios tty;
 memset(&tty, 0, sizeof tty);

 if (tcgetattr(m->serial_fd, &tty) != 0)
 {
     printf("Error %i from tcgetattr: %s\n", errno, strerror(errno));
     return -1;
 }

 tty.c_cflag &= ~PARENB;        // Disable parity
 tty.c_cflag &= ~CSTOPB;        // Clear stop field
 tty.c_cflag |= CS8;            // 8 bits per byte
 tty.c_cflag &= ~CRTSCTS;       // Disable RTS/CTS hardware flow control
 tty.c_cflag |= CREAD | CLOCAL; // Turn on READ & ignore ctrl lines (CLOCAL = 1)
 tty.c_lflag &= ~ICANON;        // Disable canonical mode
 tty.c_lflag &= ~ECHO;          // Disable echo
 tty.c_lflag &= ~ECHOE;         // Disable erasure
 tty.c_lflag &= ~ECHONL;        // Disable new-line echo
 tty.c_lflag &= ~ISIG;          // Disable interpretation of INTR, QUIT and SUSP

 // Turn off s/w flow ctrl
 tty.c_iflag &= ~(IXON | IXOFF | IXANY);

 // Disable any special handling of received bytes
 tty.c_iflag &= ~(IGNBRK|BRKINT|PARMRK|ISTRIP|INLCR|IGNCR|ICRNL);

 // Prevent special interpretation of output bytes (e.g. newline chars)
 tty.c_oflag &= ~OPOST;

 // Prevent conversion of newline to carriage return/line feed
 tty.c_oflag &= ~ONLCR;

 // Wait for up to 1s (10 deciseconds), returning as soon as any data is received.
 tty.c_cc[VTIME] = 10;
 tty.c_cc[VMIN] = 0;

 // Set in/out baud rate to be 1000000
 cfsetispeed(&tty, B1000000);
 cfsetospeed(&tty, B1000000);

 // Save tty settings
 if (tcsetattr(m->serial_fd, TCSANOW, &tty) != 0)
 {
     printf("Error %i from tcsetattr: %s\n", errno, strerror(errno));
     return -1;
 }
 fcntl(m->serial_fd, F_SETFL, FNDELAY);
 usleep(500000);
}

USB board power delivery

The USB board power-delivery in the Luos network is limited to 500 mA. This board can’t power too many boards and power-demanding ones like, for example, a DC-motor board with one or two motors connected. If you experiment power issues, feel free to add a power category board like a Jack power input board.