Hi, in this post I’ll explain how EasyVolts is controlled by PC and which commands are available. To avoid any complicated drivers EasyVolts was made as a device that appears in PC as 2 virtual COM ports. One is used as USB-UART/RS485 converter and second controls all auxiliary functionality (GPIO pins, PWM, power supply) using simple textual commands in ASCII.
At the moment device accepts following commands (they can be sent by some GUI tool like EasyVoltsGUI, by some software or script, or simply in any serial port terminal manually):
1) uXXXX\r\n – sets voltage, where XXXX is desired voltage in mV. For example u3300\r\n will set output to 3v3. Max value is 24000.
2) iXXXX\r\n – sets current limit, where XXX is desired current limit in mA. For example i100 sets current limit to 100mA. Max value is 1000.
3) U\r\n – switches on USB-UART mode. Pins Tx and Rx will be connected to UART(A,B – not used).
4) M\r\n – switches on USB-RS485 mode. Pins Tx and Rx can be used as GPIO/PWM. A,B – are used by USB-RS485 converter.
5) zTh\r\n or zTl\r\n or zT\r\n – sets Tx pin in Z-state with pullUp/pullDown/noPull respectively.
6) zRh\r\n or zRl\r\n or zR\r\n – sets Rx pin in Z-state with pullUp/pullDown/noPull respectively.
7) rT\r\n or rR\r\n – reads Tx/Rx pin respectively (it can be IN or OUT, it doesn’t matter. Current state will be returned). In responce message like “T1\r\n”,”T0\r\n” or “R1\r\n”,”R0\r\n” will be returned.
8) hT\r\n or lT\r\n – sets Tx pin in activeHigh/activeLow state respectively.
9) hR\r\n or lR\r\n – sets Rx pin in activeHigh/activeLow state respectively.
10) fXXXXX\r\n – defines PWM frequency division (base frequency is 240kHz). Max value is 65535.
11) pRXXXX\r\n or pTXXXX\r\n – sets Rx or Tx pin PWM duty cycle respectively. Max value is 1000, which means 100% in 0.1% units.
During its work, EasyVolts periodically sends to PC strings with the measured output voltage, current, and state to let the user easily observe power supply state. The strings look like following:
“EasyVolts U(mV)=3300 ^I(mA)=100\r\n” – Uout=3v3, Iout=100mA, “^” – means that overcurrent protection is active.
“EasyVolts U(mV)=3300 I(mA)=100\r\n” – Uout=3v3, Iout=100mA, ” ” – means that output is active, no overload.
“EasyVolts U(mV)=3300 _I(mA)=0\r\n” – Uout=3v3, Iout=0mA, “_” – means that output is OFF, current = 0, but voltage on output is 3v3 (for exaple if there is an external source connected).
EasyVolts 