Enabling Serial Console on Raspberry Pi (RPi) using USB to TTL Serial Cable

For enabling Serial console on RPi, so that we can get serial console on RPi, we bought cable from Amazon link “USB to TTL Serial Cable – Debug / Console Cable for Raspberry Pi” [ https://www.amazon.in/xcluma-Debugger-Raspberry-Beaglebone-Cubietruck/dp/B072TDMJW3?tag=googinhydr18418-21 ]

Now, we connect the “black”, “white” and “green” wires as shown in below image,

To enable serial console, from RPi3 we need change the boot/config.txt from the first partition of the SD card, hence Edit boot/config.txt and append line “enable_uart=1” at the end of the file. Connect SD card to RPi.

Connect Serial to USB cable to ubuntu laptop/desktop and type “dmesg” command on terminal as,

 $ dmesg
[15249.916424] usb 6-2: new full-speed USB device number 2 using uhci_hcd
[15250.073727] usb 6-2: New USB device found, idVendor=067b, idProduct=2303
[15250.073740] usb 6-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[15250.073748] usb 6-2: Product: USB-Serial Controller
[15250.073754] usb 6-2: Manufacturer: Prolific Technology Inc.
[15251.849594] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[15251.849614] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[15251.849629] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[15251.861018] usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303
[15251.861038] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for pl2303
[15251.861063] pl2303 6-2:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[15251.872688] usb 6-2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

This shows now that Serial to USB cable detected and created /dev/ttyUSB0 as device node. Now, lets start minicom on terminal as,

 $ sudo minicom -s /dev/ttyUSB0

One opened windows, goto “Serial Port Setup” and make the settings as below,

Once thats done, go to “Exit” and hit “Enter” key, so it will start minicom on /dev/ttyUSB0 port and will be ready to receive strings with below message,

Welcome to minicom 2.7

OPTIONS: I18n                                                                
Compiled on Feb  7 2016, 13:37:32.                                           
Port /dev/ttyUSB0, 22:42:28                                                  
                                                                             
Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys

Now connect the Power Cable to RPi, and you should see the booting messages flowing on minicom terminal. Enjoy !

Reference – https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/downloads/pdf/adafruits-raspberry-pi-lesson-5-using-a-console-cable.pdf

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