Adafruit
FTDI Serial TTL-232 USB Type C Cable - 5V Power and Logic
Just about all electronics use a UART serial port with RX and TX pins for debugging, bootloading, programming, serial output, etc. But it's rare for a comput...
Just about all electronics use a UART serial port with RX and TX pins for debugging, bootloading, programming, serial output, etc. But it's rare for a computer to have a serial port anymore. Thus, a serial cable is an essential part of any electrical engineer's toolkit.
This is a USB C to TTL serial cable with an FTDI FT232R usb/serial chip embedded in the head. It has a 6-pin socket at the end with 5V power and ground, as well as RX, TX, RTS and CTS at 3V logic levels. Useful whenever you want to communicate with a TTL serial device such as an Arduino Pro Mini or ESP breakout, and the pinout will match up exactly to any 'FTDI' 6-pin header.
The version we have is the 5V Power / 5V Logic. The data signals are at 5V and the power line provides 5V. We suggest this for any product that needs FTDI cables and has 5V logic/power usage or is 5V-logic friendly.
If you have a device that is running at 5V logic and power, this cable will work fine. If you want to tweak the voltages and signals a little, you should also check out the FTDI friend.
We also carry a 3V Power / 3V Logic FTDI Cable.
Jargon buster
Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.
- breakout
- A breakout is a small circuit board that makes a tiny or hard-to-solder component easier to connect to with standard pins. It matters because this OLED module can be wired into a microcontroller project without needing to solder directly to the display’s fine contacts.
- CTS
- CTS stands for Clear To Send, a serial flow-control signal that tells the other device it may transmit. It matters for reliable high-speed serial communication where buffers could otherwise overflow.
- RTS
- RTS stands for Request To Send, a serial flow-control signal used to manage when a device is ready to receive data. It matters when moving fast serial streams because flow control can help prevent lost data.
- TTL serial
- A simple serial data connection that uses microcontroller logic-level signals rather than computer RS-232 voltage levels. It matters because the camera can connect directly to many microcontroller pins or a USB-to-TTL serial adapter, but not safely to an old-style RS-232 port without conversion.
- UART
- UART is a simple serial connection that sends data over separate transmit and receive wires, often labelled TX and RX. It matters because this module is designed to replace a wired UART cable with a wireless link while keeping the same serial data format.
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