Basic connectivity
Over the weekend I have been working on a .NET Core C# library for the RAKwireless RAK3172 module using a RAK3172S breakout board, Seeedstudio Grove Base Hat for Raspberry PI and a Seeedstudio Grove-4 pin Female Jumper to Grove 4 pin Conversion Cable.
The RaspberryPI OS is a bit more strict than the other devices I use about port access. To allow my .Net Core application to access a serial port I connected to the device with ExtraPutty, then ran the RaspberyPI configuration tool, from the command prompt with “sudo raspi-config”
Once serial port access was enabled I could enumerate them with SerialPort.GetPortNames() which is in the System.IO.Ports NuGet package. My sample code has compile time options for synchronous and asynchronous operation.
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namespace devMobile.IoT.NetCore.RAK3172.ShieldSerial
{
using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO.Ports;
using System.Threading;
public class Program
{
private const string SerialPortId = "/dev/ttyS0";
public static void Main()
{
SerialPort serialPort;
Debug.WriteLine("devMobile.IoT.NetCore.Rak3172.pHatSerial starting");
Debug.WriteLine(String.Join(",", SerialPort.GetPortNames()));
try
{
serialPort = new SerialPort(SerialPortId);
// set parameters
serialPort.BaudRate = 9600;
serialPort.Parity = Parity.None;
serialPort.DataBits = 8;
serialPort.StopBits = StopBits.One;
serialPort.Handshake = Handshake.None;
serialPort.ReadTimeout = 1000;
serialPort.NewLine = "\r\n";
serialPort.Open();
#if SERIAL_ASYNC_READ
serialPort.DataReceived += SerialDevice_DataReceived;
#endif
while (true)
{
serialPort.WriteLine("AT+VER=?");
#if SERIAL_SYNC_READ
// Read the response
string response = serialPort.ReadLine();
Debug.WriteLine($"RX:{response.Trim()} bytes:{response.Length}");
// Read the blank line
response = serialPort.ReadLine();
Debug.WriteLine($"RX:{response.Trim()} bytes:{response.Length}");
// Read the result
response = serialPort.ReadLine();
Debug.WriteLine($"RX:{response.Trim()} bytes:{response.Length}");
#endif
Thread.Sleep(20000);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
}
#if SERIAL_ASYNC_READ
private static void SerialDevice_DataReceived(object sender, SerialDataReceivedEventArgs e)
{
SerialPort serialPort = (SerialPort)sender;
switch (e.EventType)
{
case SerialData.Chars:
string response = serialPort.ReadExisting();
Debug.WriteLine($"RX:{response.Trim()} bytes:{response.Length}");
break;
case SerialData.Eof:
Debug.WriteLine("RX :EoF");
break;
default:
Debug.Assert(false, $"e.EventType {e.EventType} unknown");
break;
}
}
#endif
}
}
When I requested the RAK3172 version information with the AT+VER? command the response was three lines, consisting of the version information, a blank line, then the result of the command. If I sent an invalid command the response was two lines, a blank line then “AT_ERROR”
The asynchronous version of the application displays character(s) as they arrive so a response could be split across multiple SerialDataReceived events
Unlike the RAK811 module the RAK3172 defaults 9600 baud which means there is no need to change the baudrate before using the device. I use the excellent RaspberryDebugger to download application and debug them on my Raspberry PI 3.
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