4.4 out of 5
Based on 25 ratings:
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1 of 1 found this helpful:
Very useful board.
by Member #873747 verified purchaser
I use this board to interface with PSoC, Beaglebone, and other devices. It is easy to use and flexible.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Good, but no 1.8v
by Member #639147 verified purchaser
Works well, but doesn't seem to support 1.8v even though the IC is capable of it: http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/ICs/FT232R.htm
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Truly useful little board
by Member #708122 verified purchaser
Very useful for adding a serial port to devices/systems that do not have one, or if you ran out.
Works as advertised and very easy to implement quickly for all sorts of applications.
Make sure you are using the correct FTDI drivers, the default Microsoft drivers will not work and drive you crazy.
5+ stars...
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Great solution for chip comm
by Member #389923 verified purchaser
I have this board connected directly to an ATMEGA32 chip for debug. It works great, simple to hook up. Uses universal FTDI drivers.
4 of 4 found this helpful:
Works great, could use one feature.....
by Member #831721 verified purchaser
The board worked perfectly as designed but I had to do one hack first. The I/O voltage is only selectable between 3.3 and 5V while my processor runs at 2.5V. I had to remove the switch and add a provision for an external I/O voltage input. Adding a pad and some sort of jumper, etc. for this would be helpful. Thanks at least for providing the schematic, it made the mod very easy to do.
3 of 3 found this helpful:
Bits go in, bits come out.
by Member #123218 verified purchaser
There are much cheaper bridges available in bulk from Alibaba and Ebay, but usually they're based on the SiLabs CP2102.
Pros:Dual mode drivers - You can use as VCP or direct mode.Great DLL documentation and source code examples for many platforms.DLLs to go with that great DLL documentation.Respectable support department has been responsive even to my hobby user questions.One set of drivers works with serial, JTAG, FIFO, other variants of the FTDI chips.
Cons:It's a wee big for hobby projects where space is tight. There are some Silabs boards that are 1/2 or 1/3 the size. This board is pretty easy to cut down without worrying about damaging anything though.Price - You can get equivalent function for serial only for $5 or so elsewhere, but you may have the occasional defective card.
Bottom line: FTDI chips are well supported and documented. You get piece of mind that your project will just work - the first time, every time.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
A need to have for any electronic engineer
by Thc verified purchaser
It is simple and it can still do all you need it to, best thing is it just work. I use it both in teaching my electronic class and development of satellite instrument. At DTU Space DenmarkBest RegardsThorbjørn H. Christensen
Works great but...
by Scottro verified purchaser
This product works great but the USB connector has come off of the board on dozens of these boards. I believe that the connectors have weak solder joints. So I reflow the solder joints on these connectors and I haven't had any problems since.
Great job, even it's a pity the lack of 1.8 volts.
by Member #1239677 verified purchaser
Good item at a reasonable price.The bad side regards shipping and custom fees for all those living outside US.In total i spent three times the original cost. May you, Sparkfun guys, activate other more convenient channels for those living in Europe and in Italy as I am? Just now, on Amazon, I found some, but not all, your products. If I could buy them with cheaper additional costs, you would be perfect!Best regardsAlessandro
Listening in on another RX/TX
by Member #12274 verified purchaser
I got two of these so I could tap into the RX/TX of another board to help debug the software there. They worked great!
Functions exactly as expected.
by Member #1276163 verified purchaser
No issues installing driver software or operating the device. Perfectly suited my needs to switch between 5V or 3.3V serial output.
This is a very useful little card.
by Member #80434 verified purchaser
I'm an amateur radio operator Callsign KF8KT and I do a modification to the RotorEZ card that uses serial port communications. This card allows me to add USB connectivity and it works like a charm. I only have to add two jumpers on the RotorEZ card, wire the breakout board, and add a USB-B female panel mount pigtail on the back plane to it to get it to work. It's pretty simple to do and it's a good upgrade to an already great product.
If you would like to add a neat feature to this breakout board four mounting holes in the corners would be useful. That way computer motherboard mounting hardware could be used to attach the breakout board to the chassis.
Thanks,
Darrell KF8KT
Mod for 1.8V / 2.5V
by Member #504893 verified purchaser
I lifted the center pin of the switch that supplies VCCIO. VCCIO is still connected to the FT232 and a test pin. I supplied 1.8 to the test pin and it communicates fine with my 1.8V UART. I am sure it would work for 2.5V also.
I've needed this
by Member #335934 verified purchaser
This USB serial device is the thing I've been looking for. I hooked it up to my Roomba and it just worked. It's full featured so you can do some interesting stuff with it. How many features do you need? How about everything but the JTAG?
annoying loopback echo
by Member #516562 verified purchaser
I was just plugging it in for a quick test, to make sure drivers install and whatnot. If nothing is connected it automatically echoes (loops back) anything sent. The RX light comes on, so I'm pretty sure it's a hardware thing. I had to connect RX to GND to get it to quit. None of my USB-to-RS-232 adapters do that, nor my Serial Basic CH340 USB-to-UART adapter.Other than that, it plugs in and drivers install. That's all I know right now.
A basic, no frill, but extremely affordable USB to serial I/f
by Member #1614619 verified purchaser
Works as expected for my purpose of programming Atmega328p chips. I use a Mac so I did need to install the driver, but it was fairly straight forward. I plan to use this device regularly, does SparkFun sell enclosures?
It works!
by Member #1639931 verified purchaser
I ordered this to try with an older app called "FT232 SVF Player v1.0" by Openschemes.com. It works fine! The app is slow, though, but it successfully programmed an old Xilinx XC9536 CPLD.
FT232RL Breakout Board is a good one!
by Member #633342 verified purchaser
This little breakout board came with everything needed to assemble in various configurations to fit your need. The board worked exactly as advertised, and was a snap to set up after assembly. Love the documentation provided at Sparkfun--best in class.
Prrobably eorks ok, if you can get it to work....
by Member #420461 verified purchaser
Spent two days trying to get this BOB to work as an Arduino UART to PC serial interface with no luck.
Section 7.4 in the FTDI PDF (USB to MCU UART Interface) is pretty self explanatory, but nothing seems to work. Purchased an ADAFruit serial interface and was up and running in 10 minutes. A hookup guide would likely resolve my problems, but none to be found. A MCU hookup guide should be supplied with the documentation. Avoid headacches and checkout the ADAFruit serial interfaces.
Funda replied on June 10, 2022:
Sorry to hear that the product gave you issues. If you want to file a return ticket we can take the device back for testing and see what the deal is: https://www.sparkfun.com/returns
0 of 3 found this helpful:
USB cable
by Member #490794 verified purchaser
Beware this does not use a standard USB mini cable. I needed to steal my wifes phone cable to fit.
Board okay but data sheet not...
by Member #645001 verified purchaser
Board itself works okay but as this is first time I am using this board I had problem finding the correct pin connections to the other board (BT module) I am using in my project. The data sheet available in your page shows all but the simple connection diagram for 2x9 pins + additional 4 pins.
Single T replied on March 18, 2015:
I'm sorry that it wasn't easier to find the information you were looking for. We try to cover as much as we can in our docs, but we can't always get everything. Happy hacking.
Excellent tool!
by Member #668078 verified purchaser
Everyone who works with microcontrollers and sensors should have at least one of these in their toolbox. It took me 5 minutes to connect this to a sensor and I was up and running.
Great breakout board
by Member #224170 verified purchaser
Easy to implement. Works great for interfacing UART and USB.
The board works as promised .
by Member #715028 verified purchaser
Recommended for others
works as it should
by Jimmy Nuetron verified purchaser
nice little pcb works as it should
