COM2 Serial Connection not working

[jayw]

I had been getting occasional lockups presumably of the WizNet ethernet interface (responds to pings, but communication with GEM is not possible - resolved with power cycling), and I want to try a wired rs232 connection to my computer.

To test the connection first, I hooked my FTDI (quite certain it's a genuine one, and confirmed working with other devices) Serial-USB converter to my terminal program. I connected GND > GND, and RX>TX, and TX>RX. COM1 and COM2 were set to 115200 with no flow control. Packet format 0:Disabled (which I assume makes it the same as COM1) Despite doing this, I was unable to see any output, gibberish or otherwise, let alone issue commands to the GEM. I also tried reversing the RX/TX lines with the same result.

Is there anything else I should be checking? The GEM is otherwise running on a polling mode via WizNet ethernet.

Below is the config copy and pasted:

Serial#: (redacted)
COM firmware ver: 4.33
ENG firmware ver: 1.49
RealTime Status: OFF
Packet Send Interval: 10
Pri. Packet Format: 4
Sec. Packet Format: 0
Sys Status: OK Wifi/Ethernet Module: Enabled
GEM Ver: Single Phase Only
PCB Ver: 2
BootLoader Ver: 2
COM1 Flow: OFF
COM2 Flow: OFF
Current Constant: 222
Sys Info: 00100001 OK
Sys Flags: 00000000 OK Keep Alive String:""
COM1 Baud: 115200
COM2 Baud: 115200
Phase Setting: Single Phase
Freq: 60Hz
Hardware Configuration: 136
Ethernet with connector board

[ben]

What's the idle time set to on the Ethernet module? You can try enabling COM1 Auto Reset if the lockups are constant, this will reboot the Ethernet module at a set interval.

You likely need to wire the USB cable as follows:

GND->GND
Tx->Tx
Rx->Rx