Serial Monitor Gibberish?

Amaravati · 2018-02-11T15:39:39.130Z

Hi,

I had an issue with readings from the serial monitor with my Windows/Atom/PlatformIO serial monitor and emonTH with the programmer from openenergymonitor shop.

The solution? set the baud on 115200 (not on 9600 as I have read it somewhere)

Gibberish:

Capture2728×182 20.4 KB

VS readeable

Capture774×477 47.8 KB

(man… hard work to figure this stuff out for a complete beginner)

Robert.Wall · 2018-02-11T23:17:07.066Z

What you saw there is absolutely typical of what you see with a wrong (too slow) baud rate. On the other hand, if your baud rate is set too fast, you can see nothing.

So if you are using a serial connection, and you don’t see what you expect, it is worth trying the range of baud rates before you look further.

Amaravati · 2018-02-12T07:15:14.471Z

Well, I found the reference here: Using PlatformIO — OpenEnergyMonitor 0.0.1 documentation

Under the Platform IO:

5. Upload Firmware

If code compiles successfully upload the firmware by clicking on Upload (3)

Note: A USB to UART cable is required to upload to emonTx / emonTH

After successful upload check nodeID has changed by viewing serial output, click Serial Monitor (4) and choose 9600 baud.

Also at the command line it says:

4. View serial port with PlatformIO CLI

$ pio serialports monitor -b9600

It would help if that bit (baud) of the manual is adjusted. This really had put me on the ‘wrong’ track so to speak and made it really frustrating, because I started to think I was missing something. Not sure if you can specify an exact baud rate, but at least something that says this can be changed if you see ‘gibberish’…

Robert.Wall · 2018-02-12T10:40:39.546Z

I don’t know or use platformio, so I’m afraid I can only help and advise you about the standard Arduino IDE.

I suggest you point out errors in the manual to either @Gwil or @glyn.hudson

Amaravati · 2018-02-12T13:44:04.682Z

OK, I see I could make a log on Github, done this here: Baud rate wrong? · Issue #31 · openenergymonitor/guide · GitHub

glyn.hudson · 2018-02-12T16:26:22.829Z

User guide has been updated, thanks:

github.com/openenergymonitor/guide

set baud fix #31

committed 04:25PM - 12 Feb 18 UTC

glynhudson

+1 -1