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could AFE4404 EVM GUI used with custom board?

kevin lin97
Prodigy 50 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: AFE4404, AFE4404EVM

I have a AFE4404 sensor board and a main board with a Nordic MCU. I see TI have this EVM GUI which is great for debugging AFE4404, but It seems that it only talk with MCU through USB, which is not available on the Nordic chip. Is there a chance I can use a UART-TO-USB bridge board and use my MCU to talk to AFE4404 EVM GUI?

Thanks. 

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 49926 points

    Hi Kevin,

    The AFE4404 EVM GUI will be able to recognize the EVM only if it is defined as a 'AFE44xx EVM' under COM port settings in the Device Manager. If you can change the device description of the USB driver of the UART-to-USB bridge board to 'AFE44xx EVM', then the GUI will be able to recognize the board.

    Additionally the GUI communicates to the EVM through a communication message protocol. The latest firmware source v1.5 (www.ti.com/.../slac718) includes the message communication protocol document. The document can be found under C:\AFE4404EVMFWSRC-v1.5\AFE4404EVM_FW_SRC_v1.5_Release\Documents
    This document defines the commands and responses exchanged between the GUI and the EVM. If you can modify your UART driver code to parse these commands and provide the appropriate responses, then you should be able to use any MCU to communicate with the GUI.

  • 0 in reply to Praveen Aroul
    Prodigy 50 points

    Thanks for your information, Praveen. Glad to know that. I will give it a shot.

  • 0 in reply to Praveen Aroul
    Prodigy 50 points

    Hi Praveen, I am able to change the name of usb-uart bridge to 'AFE44xx EVM' under COM port settings in the Device Manager, and the EVM GUI see it and enter the main UI. right-down corner shows "HW CONNECTED". but the cursor indicates it's still waiting or doing something at background and the UI is unresponsive. At the MCU side I put a breakpoint at the UART receive routine and it get nothing all the time. So the UI never try to communicate with my 'fake EVM'. Any clue? Thanks.

  • 0 in reply to kevin lin97
    TI__Mastermind 49926 points
    Hi Kevin,

    The GUI sends a Device Identification command (0x04 0x0D) and waits for a response from the EVM.

    You could use a COM port sniffer to monitor the data exchanged on the serial COM port.
  • 0 in reply to Praveen Aroul
    Prodigy 50 points

    Hi Praveen, good new is that I can receive something over the USB-UART bridge. I see it on the sniffer. The problem is that EVM GUI don't know it's a uart bridge do it would not set it's baudrate at the first time? From the captured uart data I guess the data I received is

    04 0d 07 0d      (baudrate 9600)

    04 0d                 (baudrate 230400)

    other data         (baudrate 230400)

    In my FW I need to set the baudrate to 230400, and reset the UART logic when it receive '04 0d 07 0d ' which is sent using baudrate 9600, then it can talk to the EVM GUI using baudrate 230400.  Don't know where this baudrate comes from, but it simply works.

    Will try it more. Anyway, the communication is set up successfully. Thanks for your help.

  • 0 in reply to kevin lin97
    TI__Mastermind 49926 points

    Hi Kevin,

    Glad to know that you were able to figure this out.

    You are right. The baudrate is set to 230400 in the GUI.

    Here are the COM port settings of the GUI.

    Baud Rate = "230400"
    Data bits = "8"
    Parity = "None"
    Stop Bits = "10"
    Flow Control = "0"
    Response Delay (ms) = "0"
    Buffer Size = "8192"
  • 0 in reply to kevin lin97
    Intellectual 490 points

    Hi !

    I am also trying to communicate afe &  tiva launchpad.

    I also receive 04 0d 07 0d @9600.So,as per ur observation, I also changed baud to 230400 in f/w,but communication error occurred at device is displayed in GUI.

    I am not getting 04 0d command from GUI again like u have after changing baudrate to 230400.

    Pl.let me know  if u respond back to GUI with (which ?)command for 1st time or not and then switch baudrate to 230400?

    Is there any GUI flowchart/command sequence in which it communicates with micro controller f/w u have seen?


    Thanks & Regards,

    Neelima