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Author Topic: Identify two ports belonging to same FT2232 chip (C# preferred)  (Read 11892 times)

ost

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Identify two ports belonging to same FT2232 chip (C# preferred)
« on: January 28, 2019, 12:37:22 PM »

Is there a safe way to identify two(four) MPSSE ports belonging to the same FT2232(FT4232) chip? In my case I wanted to write software for a specific custom made hardware device containing one of those chips, and in the case there should be more than one of these FT devices connected to the same computer, I need to identify which ones are belonging to the same device. I know it can be handled with serial numbers, but let's assume the serial is not written to the EEPROM.

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Re: Identify two ports belonging to same FT2232 chip (C# preferred)
« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2019, 01:57:42 PM »

Hi,

We normally recommend to fit the EEPROM and to program it with a string which represents the purpose of the device e.g. "Datalogging Interface" and "Programming Interface". This allows you to easily identify which chip you are opening as well as the port. Other methods relying on location ID or index could have dependency on which physical port the user plugs each chip into and which order they are connected in.

Opening by the description appended with an A or B for the respective port would allow you to easily find and open the correct port without any manual selection by the user.
ftStatus = myFtdiDevice.OpenByDescription("Datalogging Interface B");

Best Regards, FTDI Community
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ost

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Re: Identify two ports belonging to same FT2232 chip (C# preferred)
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2019, 09:54:25 AM »

Thanks, but I want to be able to support several of these FT2232 devices attached to the same computer, so I need to identify the ports belonging to the same device. If the driver can't not do that, I guess I need to add a hard link between an IO of each port, but I honestly think this is a job for a (future) driver. I'm pretty convinced there must be some linkage to the common usb port handle somewhere in the operating system, that the driver could pick up.

My application is a "bringup device" to initialize products during factory initialization (to talk to both SPI and serial), and I want it all to be automatic and work with several bringup devices on the same computer.
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Re: Identify two ports belonging to same FT2232 chip (C# preferred)
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2019, 12:06:47 PM »

Hi,

It will be no problem to use several FT2232H on the same PC at the same time.

The location ID would allow you to check the actual location (with respect to the USB device tree) as you mentioned. 

However, since FT2232H are all identical (no internal EEPROM) then there is no way for the driver to identify a particular FT2232H unless they are always plugged into exactly the same ports on the PC. We recommend fitting the EEPROM so that you can identify each FT2232H as well as telling which ports are on the same FT2232H.

Best Regards,
FTDI Community
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allenhuffman

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Re: Identify two ports belonging to same FT2232 chip (C# preferred)
« Reply #4 on: September 04, 2019, 10:12:09 PM »

I see many programs that require me to unplug my device, click a button, then plug it back in, and they just look for what changed. Now that I've worked with the FTDI stuff a bit, I have a better understanding of the problem they face -- trying to figure out which of the eight FTDI-based devices is the one you mean ;-) If you cannot customize the ID in each device (unique), this might be an option to look into.
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