Hello everybody, ... I tried searching the web, searching the ACME systems home page, and searching through this group - but unfortunatly, I did not find an answer to my question. So my last hope is that someone here already faced this problem.
I want to connect a small medical device to the foxboard. This device provides a serial connection based on a 5V-TTL-Level. At the moment, it is connected to /dev/ttyS0 using the FOX console (http://foxlx.acmesystems.it/?id=106) on foxboard-side, and TTL-to-RS232-converter on the medical device side, so that the "architecture" is medical device <-> cable to TTL/RS232-converter <-> crossed cable to the FOX console <-> foxboard J10. The whole thing works, I can communicate and exchange data with the attached device - but of course this is not really a "nice" solution because of the two converters involved. That's why I would like to directly attach the medical device to the foxboard - according to the documentation, the foxboards serial ports on J6 are 5v tolerant, so I guess that I at last could try to connect my device to that port without causing any damage. Unfortunatly, nothing is said about the port realized at J10 - I *guess*, that this also should be 5V tolerant (why should only J6 be?). Can perhaps anyone here confirm (or negate) my assumption? Secondly, what I'm asking myself: it is one thing that this port is 5V tolerant - so I may send in signals on the RX line, and the foxboard will know how to handle those data. But of course, I will need 5V on the TX line too to ensure that the device on the other end of the line can handle the signals send from the foxboard. It my assumption correct that the foxboard will send signals at 3.3V level, and that it is not sure that my device attached at the other end of the line will be able to work with those signals? (sorry for this stupid question - I'm computer scientist, but this seems more to be a problem for an electrical engineer ;-)). Thanks in advance, and greetings from Dortmund University, Germany Jan
