To communicate with the IHC Controller, you will need an USB to RS485 dongle.
Various dongles can be used, they usually cost a couple of dollars/euros.
I opted for this one:
Connect the wires from the RS485 dongle to the IHC Controller terminals according to the following scheme:
- dongle
A
-> controller+
- dongle
B
-> controller-
- dongle
GND
-> controller0V
USB serial devices may get different devicenames (ttyUSB0
...ttyUSBn
) on
system boot or when multiple devices are getting plugged in and pulled out.
So it is usually a good idea to assign a persistent names for them.
First, find out the vendor ID and product ID of your dongle:
root@hal:~# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0403:6001 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd FT232 Serial (UART) IC
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Microchip Technology, Inc. (formerly SMSC) SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Microchip Technology, Inc. (formerly SMSC) SMC9514 Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
From the above example we find the vendor ID 0403
and product ID 6001
.
Create a file /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usb-serial.rules
with the following content:
# RS485 dongle (IHC server):
SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6001", SYMLINK+="ttyUSB.IHC"
Disconnect and reconnect the dongle. You should now have a new alias
ttyUSB.IHC
created for the device:
root@hal:~# ls -l /dev/ttyUSB.IHC
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Dec 18 15:12 /dev/ttyUSB.IHC -> ttyUSB0
Tip
You can choose any name for the alias as long as it is unique.