BBB cannot connect to (or power) sensor over serial to USB adapter

Product support
1

Hello resin.io team!

I’m working on a project that involves a BeagleBone Black (Rev C) and a Scanse Sweep 360 degree spinning LiDAR sensor (http://scanse.io) The device comes with a FT230X serial-to-USB based adapter (see image below and https://support.scanse.io/hc/en-us/articles/224449728-Quickstart)

cables_small.jpg800×600 181 KB

If I plug in the USB end of the adapter to my Macbook, the LiDAR starts spinning, the device pops up under /dev and I can use their visualizer to look at the data coming in. However, when I plug it in my BBB’s USB port, nothing happens. The device doesn’t even get power. I posted about it on Scanse’s forums first: http://community.scanse.io/t/serial-adapter-connection/268/3 Their CEO says that the device driver should be in “newer Linux kernels”. As I mentioned in that post, the device doesn’t even show up under lsusb:

# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Moreover, if I check dmesg as I plug it into the BBB, I see:

[  632.868038] musb-hdrc musb-hdrc.1.auto: VBUS_ERROR in a_wait_bcon (89, <AValid), retry #1, port1 00000104
[  632.923762] musb-hdrc musb-hdrc.1.auto: VBUS_ERROR in a_wait_vrise (89, <AValid), retry #2, port1 00000104
[  632.978819] musb-hdrc musb-hdrc.1.auto: VBUS_ERROR in a_wait_vrise (89, <AValid), retry #3, port1 00000104
[  633.034014] musb-hdrc musb-hdrc.1.auto: VBUS_ERROR in a_wait_vrise (88, <AValid), retry #3, port1 0008010c

Other devices, such as a USB Wi-Fi adapter and a USB dongle for a wireless mouse do work on the BBB.

The BBB is running Resin OS 2.0.3+rev1 (dev) and my project is based on the resin/beaglebone-black-buildpack-deps:jessie base image. The Linux kernel version seems to be 4.4.55+. All project details are pretty much available here: https://github.com/spmaniato/resin-bbb-ros-sweep

How do I get this working on my resin-based BBB? Do I have to manually configure udev rules or something like that? If it’s not that simple, any advice on where to look next in terms of debugging?

Thanks :slight_smile:

PS1. I could forget about the USB adapter and interface directly over serial, but I’m hoping to avoid that.
PS2. I’m totally doing a writeup of this project once it’s all figured out #blog4swag

3

Hello, this looks like a power issue – check these couple of links:

The second one has much more details.

You might want to try powering the LIDAR separately and give us a shout.

4

Thanks for the quick reply Aki! I just ordered a powered USB hub for the BBB. I’ll let you know if that makes a difference :electric_plug:

5

@dfunckt The device works fine when powered via a 5V/2.5A USB hub. Thanks a lot for your help :slight_smile:

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0403:6015 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd Bridge(I2C/SPI/UART/FIFO)
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2109:2811  # <-- USB hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
$ ls /dev | grep USB
ttyUSB0