01-22-2025 05:52 PM
Hi,
I wanted to ask about the best way to establish communication between my myRIO and a Raspberry Pi using Python. I’m not sure if the myRIO’s USB ports (A or B) function as serial interfaces, similar to how an Arduino communicates with a Raspberry Pi.
Could you clarify whether USB can be used for serial communication, or if there’s a better approach?
Thanks!
01-22-2025 08:44 PM
First questions you need to answer are:
The Software Toolkit has functions to handle three types of serial communication. The Toolkit comes with Express VIs that can let you use selected pins on the A and B ports to support serial communication either using the RS-232 protocol (i.e. act as a UART), SPI, or I²C. You can also "roll your own" -- I've worked on a 16-channel stimulator that used a myRIO (and a few other boards, including a motherboard into which the myRIO "plugged" through its A and B connectors (with a ribbon cable going to the C connector) and was capable of handling 16 channels of SPI communications with 16 daughter boards that managed the 16 channels of stimulus. [Just because the myRIO Toolkit implements only 2 channels of SPI and specifies the pins to use doesn't mean you can't re-arrange the pins are used and make a system running 16 SPI channels in parallel].
[Note -- I'm currently not on my "myRIO" PC, so I can't provide an example. But as long as you have the correct versions of LabVIEW (32-bit) and the corresponding myRIO Software Toolkit on a Windows 10 (64-bit) PC, and have a myRIO configured by this PC (the myRIO software has to "match" the PC software), you should be able to use Serial Port communication. I also know you asked about using the USB port for Serial Communication, and my response was using a Serial Port for Serial Communication -- I must confess I've not used the myRIO's USB port in my code.]
Bob Schor