Does anyone know the cheapest place to find a Mikrobus USB UART click board, to be shipped to NZ?
Digikey wants $15 for the board (good) but $30 shipping (bad)
Mouser wants $25 for the board (bad) but $39 shipping (worse)
(for a Brainpad)
I have no idea on shipping cost ā¦
Try http://www.robotshop.com/en/usb-uart-interface-click-board.html
Could you get a FTDI USB cable locally?
http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/Cables/USBTTLSerial.htm
Is this for scratch?
@ Gus - It is
For scratch, a new firmware will be released to handle everything over the usb port. No need to add anything. Should be available in few weeks.
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Yup - I have a new version all ready to go when the GHI update comes out. It will auto-detect the firmware on your BrainPad and use the primary USB or expansion port as appropriate. You can switch between modes at boot time too.
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@ Gus - Is there good news for the new FW for using the USB native brainpad connector to be able to work by using Scratch? Pleaseeeee
I have been told it is done but I havenāt tested it myself. Few more days I think.
Just got the new BP. Thanks GHI!
Checking on the status of that new firmware. Canāt wait to try Scratch and donāt have any Click boards.
@ Architect - bribe John. He has a copy 
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You need two things for this to work - 1) the new G30 firmware 2) a new Scratch āfirmataā image
- you can get from GHI
- you can either build from source ([url]https://github.com/PervasiveDigital/ScratchDotNet/tree/master/src/netmf/firmware/BrainPadFirmataApp[/url]) or I will be updating the images that are automatically installed by the Scratch gateway in the next few days.
I would recommend waiting for (2) to come through the gateway installer, because then you will get display support too, but if you build and deploy from source, at least you can use it now without a Click board.
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Thanks! 
@ mcalsyn
Have you tried it with the updated firmware? I have deployed from the VS the latest firmata (with the fix I have outlined in the pull request 
) on the new firmware. Nothing.
@ Architect - There are a few other changes that youāll need with the latest firmware. Iāll check those into the v1.5 branch either tomorrow or Thursday (Iām travelling on Wed). The other fixes look great and I am merging those in (the instantiation order issue was accidentally introduced a couple checkins ago - good catch)
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@ mcalsyn - Sounds good!
By the way - one very important usage note for the USB serial support in the new firmwareā¦ You need to attach the board and activate CDC mode (hold the left button down while booting), and then on the PC, start Device Manager; go to Ports; find the āGHI CDC Interface (COMX)ā; select Properties; select Port Settings; and then set the default baud rate to 115200.
The port seems to default to 9600 baud and thatās way too slow for the amount of traffic that Scratch pumps through the interface.
Once you do that, with the checked in code in the v1.5 branch, your CDC mode should work, but only for commands to the various output devices. I am debugging an issue with inputs (buttons, etc), which are not being reported as events.
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Iāll try that tonight
@ Architect - If you sync the latest firmware from the v1.5 branch, you should find everything working now. The old code for reading the touch pads was causing problems. Iāve done a quick smoke test with buttons and traffic lights and all seems well again.
So if you sync this code and change the PC side of your CDC port to 115200, all should be well. There is also new code that will show exceptions in red on the display if the driver fails for any reason.
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Still no news from an official release and FW implementation for using scratch brainpad to have only one usb cable? Pleasee.!!
Any day nowā¦ Quality comes first. We are trying our best.