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Author Topic: VNC2: UART to FT232 bridge at 230400 baud no flow control  (Read 9267 times)

chris.b

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VNC2: UART to FT232 bridge at 230400 baud no flow control
« on: June 09, 2022, 12:40:45 PM »

Dear Forum,

this is my first implementation with the VNC2 on an existing design. Your very welcome to also consider newbies design flaws.

My project is to connect to external device via the VNC2 to an embedded device (µC). Hardware is already set. Config of the external device is set. VNC2 and µC firmware I have control of (well, trying for now). 

The data pathway is pretty straigt forward:
  • The external device has an FTDI and USB-B. It uses also the FT232 host and outputs the data with 230400 baud, no flow control.
  • My VNC2 is supposed to receive the data with the FT232 host and forward it to the standard UART port (pin 23, 24). The standard UART settings I could choose.
  • The last device is a µC that receives the data from the VNC2 UART to process it.

I went through various examples and the implementation looks quite straight forward, but I have the the following problem: I experience data loss somewhere in the VNC2

My question: is a FT232 to UART bridge with 230400 baud no flow control possible with the VNC2 and I have done some stupid things in my implementation, or are there knwon limitations?

For your reference you can find my code attached.

vnc2.c - the standard thread based approach I found in some examples enriched with plug/unplug management in the firmware thread.

Thanks a lot, any help much appreciated.
Chris
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FTDI Community

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Re: VNC2: UART to FT232 bridge at 230400 baud no flow control
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2022, 04:00:12 PM »

Hi Chris,

we advise against using VNC2 with no flow control as this can result in data loss. try setting RTS_CTS flow control to see if this fixes the issue. if it doesn't let me know and we can go from there.

Best Regards

FTDI Community   
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chris.b

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Re: VNC2: UART to FT232 bridge at 230400 baud no flow control
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2022, 04:14:12 PM »

Thanks for the answer.

I fully agree that UART-transmission without flow control at that rate is not recommended. Unfortunately the configuration of the external device is given... I will test your sugestion with a terminal program where I can send test data with flow control enabled and see if this fixes the issue.

I'll keep you posted.
Chris
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chris.b

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Re: VNC2: UART to FT232 bridge at 230400 baud no flow control
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2022, 11:21:24 AM »

Dear Community,

much too many hours later I resolved the issus. As written above I had an existing hardware design and no control of the USB peer device. I've learned a whole lot and will share some experience hoping it helps to learn faster than I did. Experts, you're welcome to correct my statements.

My system:
- The VNC2 is a data relay inbetween a USB peer device and an embedded system connected via UART.
- The communication follows a strict request/response pattern, where the embedded system is the master.
- USB peer is preconfigured with 230400 baud, 8N1, no flow control. Data packets are up to 4k byte (upstream).
- UART peer now is configured with 500k baud, 8N1, flow control in the logic layer; explanation below (downstream).

In bullets:
- 230400 baud is possible under very special circumstances.
- The whole FW for the VNC2 is more complex than it appears. Devil is in the detail.
- I checked 11 examples. I was able to learn from them, but they are not 'industry ready' code. Happy path worked most of the time. But edge cases usually were not considered.
- There is a patch "Vinculum II Installer V2.0.2-SP3.exe" that fixes some parts in the UART lib. BUT! You need to request it via email from the support -> thanks for the quick replies.
- The main problem I experienced is in the USB part of the chip. FT232 splits a continuous UART data stream in chucks of 62 bytes and obviously the RTOS then takes care of other stuff in between. These "pauses" in the data stream cause a buffer overflow at same input/output baud rates. See the attached scope plot, where red is the incoming data stream (continuous) and blue is the outgoing data stream (split).
- As said, the output data stream is split into chunks of 62 bytes. If, at the end, the last chuck is not 62 bytes, there is a delay from 10msec to 80msec!!! before the VNC2 sends it. See the scope plot with the blue peak at the end. I've sent 63 bytes. I read about a config paramter for that timeout, but was not able to apply it.
- Hardware flow control is not possible by design. I tried SW flow control between the VNC2 and the embedded system. I did not work. I was not able to identify the reason.

The solution:
- Part one of the solution was to increase the UART baud rate from VNC2 to the embedded system to 500k baud to compensate for the pauses in the upstream.
- Part two of the solution was to slow down the downstream from the embedded system to the USB peer on the logic layer. I.e. I split the downstream into chunks of 62 bytes and allow a pause of 1.3msec between (heuristic value).
- Part three of the solution was a carefully balanced timing in the VNC2 firmware.
 - I have three threads: downstream, upstream, and connection events. All threads have the same priority. Otherwise the thread with less priority is never executed.
 - The downstream sleeps for one msec when no data is avialable. Othewise the scheduler would jump back and forth every time and the pauses in the upstream are too long.
 - The upstream does never sleep. This reduces the 'effective" downstream, but I compensate that with the delays in the logic layer of the embedded system.

I would love to learn that there is this magic configuration that resolves my problems, and all the custom design patterns applied here are not necessary.

FTDI: please, please, please, put the code of your examples to github! Then, we - the community - can help fix, improve, extend, collaborate.
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