Firecracker share serial port?

markd · Post by **markd** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 10:55 am

My understanding is that the firecracker can share the serial port with another device. . . I currently have an FC, a CM11a, and I'm trying to add a W800. But I can't enable both the FC and the W800 (or CM11a) on the same serial port in HB.

Firecracker only uses the hardware handshake lines. . . which apparently aren't used by the CM11a. I've seen a couple references that say the CM11a and the FC can share the same serial port . . (heyu, for instance).

Is there any way to override the check in HB and allow both devices to share the port?

thanks

Markd

markd · Post by **markd** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 11:33 am

Ok .. . . just restarted HB, and now it appears to be working. . .

markd · Post by **markd** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 5:42 pm

I take it back- it lets the assignment stand, but if you try to access either device- boom! HB crash.

Scott?

Post by **ScottBot** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 6:07 pm

Is there a dump file you can send?

markd · Post by **markd** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 6:46 pm

Here ya go. . .

Would you expect it to be able to share the port? It sure acted like I couldn't pick them both, right up until I re-started and it was there.

(I tacked a .zip on the end of the file as .dmp isn't an allowed type. Might want to add that one to the list?)

thanks

Markd

Post by **ScottBot** » Sat Jan 27, 2007 8:54 pm

I'm having problems downloading/viewing the attachment. Can you just send it to me at support @ cebotics.com?

Post by **ScottBot** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:23 pm

ok... sorry it's taken so long to dig into this.

There are a couple of issues here. The crash is being caused by the fact that the Hardware Interface isn't being correctly disabled when it fails to start after HouseBot is started. When data is trying to be sent using the Hardware Interface that was not initialized correctly, it causes the crash. This problem has been fixed.

But your real problem is that even though the Firecracker is only using the handshake lines, the OS must still open the com port to control the handshake lines. This is failing due to the fact that you have another Hardware Interface plugin that already has the port opened. Windows only grants exclusive ownership to a COM port, so the second one fails to open.

I'm not sure how Heyu does it, but it probably just opens the port in the main application and shares the usage internally. Unfortunately, with the Hardware Interface architecture of HouseBot, each Hardware Interface is independent, and therefore, doesn't share system resources between plug-ins at all.

markd · Post by **markd** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 7:06 am

Ok, glad the crash is fixed. . . . My 6-port serial card came in on Monday, and I got it installed on Tuesday, so I don't have to share anymore. (Plus room for expansion!

Heyu is linux. . . maybe that explains it?

Thank you

Markd