Using a Bluetooth RS232 serial adapter to program a BS2

The Doctor

Do any of you know if it·is possible to use a Bluetooth RS232 serial adapter such as the Firefly:

http://www.ipenabled.com/bluetooth-rs232.html

Instead of a serial cable to program a BoE mounted BS2? From the page:

Our Firefly pair replaces your serial RS232 cable with a Bluetooth Class 1 wireless connection up to 100 meters (330 feet) away. The Firefly Bluetooth RS232 Serial adapter consists of two Firefly devices that can be configured to make a wireless RS232 cable replacement or extender. Each Firefly contains a 2.4GHz RF ceramic chip antenna. Just plug in each Firefly, set the baud rate DIP switches, configure the signal jumpers, and you are connected.

Thanks in advance!

Chris Savage

Hello,

Without testing it there’s no way to be sure, however experience has taught us that unless the device has been designed to buffer and re-transmit the data locally, it would most likely be prone to failures for reasons of timing and re-transmission issues.

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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support

DAVID COOKE

i've used two different types of bluetooth (handyport and LM) device to communicate wirelessly between a PC and a serial device ( a timing display) and both work without any problems. Obviously, the devices had to be configured to meet the port settings of the display
david cooke

allanlane5

Fine, David, but the issue with the BS2 is very close timing between the DTR signal (which resets the BS2 and prepares it for programming) and the programming data coming in to the BS2 and the acknowledge signals from the BS2 back to the programming device. Violate ANY of these timing constraints (which weren't built for Blue-Tooth) and the "programming" process fails.

Note none of these timing constraints exists for most "generic" RS-232 communication using Blue-tooth. These constraints absolutely DO exist if you want to PROGRAM a BS2 over blue-tooth.

Mike Green

There is a device for remotely programming Stamps called the Stache. This is a small microprocessor with its own EEPROM. It's designed to "look like" a Stamp when it's plugged into a PC and to "look like" a PC when it's plugged into a Stamp. The Stamp Editor will download one or more programs to it which get stored in its EEPROM, then it can be plugged into a Stamp and will transfer the program(s) to the Stamp from its EEPROM. You could do something like this using a wireless link, but you'd have to have a controller at both ends between the PC and the Bluetooth adapter and between the Bluetooth adapter and the Stamp. The data would get transferred over the wireless link using some protocol that's not sensitive to serial port timing like XModem, YModem, ZModem, or Kermit and the controllers at each end would translate this to or from the Stamp's download protocol. This download protocol is documented and is included with the Stamp Tokenizer information downloadable from Parallax.

allanlane5

Okay, but now you need a blue-tooth enabled device (another BS2, perhaps) programmed to be a "Blue-tooth to BS2 Programing" converter. This will let you reprogram the original BS2 you wanted to program.

This could be useful, but is a bit more complicated than simply adding some bluetooth hardware.

Oh, and regarding the Firefly -- that "No MODEM Control" phrase in the documentation page implies this would NOT work off-the-shelf.