Serial Port Debugger Window

This utility can be used when trying to understand and debug serial port communications. For example, you may need to figure out what prepend and termination strings to use for RFID readers, remote displays, temperature probes, etc. This utility is normally used by the person who is setting up your hardware and does assume a bit of advanced knowledge to use.

Connecting to the Device

When the window is first opened you will be asked to choose a port and set the other connection information. Check the user manual for the device if you are unsure about these settings. Once the settings are accepted you will see a window where you can either receive or send to the device. At the bottom right of this window is an Open Port button which you must click for the debugger to actually attempt to connect to the device.

If you receive an error message you may have some settings incorrect or you may have chosen the wrong port. Click the Port Setup button to go back and review these settings. If you need to, click the Refresh Port List to get an updated list of available ports from the operating system.

If the expected port does not show up here, it is either in use elsewhere in Fusion or by another application, or it is not set up such that the operating system recognized it.

Once the port is open you can either receive data from the device (RFID readers, temperature probes) or send data to the device (remote displays). You determine which mode the debugger is in by selecting the appropriate tab at the top of the window.

Receiving

Once in receiving mode you can ask the device to send information and it will appear in the window. For example, with an RFID reader you would need to scan a tag and when you do so it should appear in the window. (It is very important that you make sure the reader isn’t in a mode where it doesn’t send duplicate tags. If you are unsure about this, make sure you use a set of tags that you know haven’t been scanned with the device before.)

As the device sends information you will see it appear in the text box. If the device sends a character that cannot be directly displayed, the ASCII equivalent will be shown enclosed in less than/greater than signs like this: <13>. To continue with our example, to set up an RFID reader correctly you must know the termination string. If you use this utility to receive a few tags you will see some hidden characters between each tag.

If you saw 124000123456789<13><10>124000564894326<13><10> then you would know that the termination string setting needs to be 13,10.

Below the box where received characters are placed are several buttons:

Clear. This simply clears the above text box which is helpful when it becomes too cluttered.
Copy. This copies the above text box into the system clipboard so you can paste it into another application.
Email Support. This will email the contents to our support team. You can use this option when you need help interpreting the characters. Make sure you have an internet connection first.
Save. Allows you to save the characters just as you see them (with the <x>'s) to a file.
Save Raw. Allows you to save the actual stream of characters with no interpretation to a file.

Sending

You can use the sending tab to send characters to a device like a remote display. This part of the tool is probably a less useful way to test remote displays as it is usually easier to just use the scale system. However, in some situations it might be useful. There are four ways to send characters to the device:

Use Send button to send text. This allows you to enter any characters in the text box, but nothing happens until you click the Send button. Then everything in the text box will be sent at once.
Send after hitting Return/Enter key. If you are using a keyboard you can use this mode. It will automatically send whatever you have typed every time you hit the Enter (Return on Mac) key.
Send after each keystroke. Again you must be using a keyboard. It will send each keystroke immediately after you type it.
Send File. You can also select a file and have the debugger send the whole file to the device at once.

Diagrams

If you click the Diagrams… button, Fusion will show some common serial port wiring examples.

Getting Here

You can open this window by going to Fusion Admin → Utilities → Serial Port Debugger, Fusion Chuteside Main Menu → Options → Serial Port Debugger, or Fusion Truck Main Menu → Options → Serial Port Debugger. (Fusion Installer also has this window built in so you can use it from there as well.)