How to work with FTDI V2DIP1-48?

Question

Could someone please direct me how to interface with this chip? I am a total newbie in electronics, and after buying this chip, well, i have absolutely no idea how to connect it.

The chip has an USB port, so i was sure that it needs to be connected through it to a PC (perhaps with some jumper setting). I couldn't find a double male usb-a cable, so i bought parts for it with the chip. The USB parts didn't reach me, so i was going to use some old mice and printer cables to salvage the parts - but that made me think - is it really a good idea to connect it like this? I'm just trying to connect it and check what happens - hopefully some hint on how to go from there, not a fire. Hell, i don't even know the pin order for such a cable.

I bought the V2DIP1 hoping i could cut down costs of my robot i decided on a FTDI chip instead of an arduino ADK to get a serial connection from an android device to an Arduino or directly a H-Brdige, or a button/sensor etc. My reasoning was that the ADK devices have and FTDI chip internaly anyway (they do, right?), and i have a arduino uno already.

So, what i need from this chip is at least to make some connection to android (or even a PC, for now) and set/read some pins on/from it - any hints on how to do this, please?

The chip i bought: http://www.tme.eu/en/details/v2dip1-48/ftdi-modules/ftdi/

An FTDI tutorial on how to attach to android (but the board is different :/): http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/SoftwareExamples/Android_Projects.htm

Answer 1

Connecting the USB-A on the board to the PC is not the solution. According to the v2dip1 data sheet at http://www.ftdichip.com/Documents/DataSheets/Modules/DS_V2DIP1-48.pdf a custom debugger interface is required to load firmware.

The interface is documented with a schematic in the application note: http://www.ftdichip.com/Documents/AppNotes/AN_138_Vinculum-II_Debug_Interface_Description.pdf

It appears to consist of an FT232R usb-serial converter and some logic to produce a bidirectional serial signal from the separate transmit/receive lines, as well as some mode pins.

Answer 2

Have you seen this document which is the one referred to at the bottom of the page that you referenced. It is "AN_181_ Accessing Android Open Accessory Mode with Vinculum-II"

They say

• Android Open Accessory Mode is a new feature in Android 3.1 (back-ported to 2.3.4) whereby a USB host device can connect to the Android device to allow data transfer to and from the Android device over USB.

• This application note demonstrates how the VNC2 device can enable the Open Accessory Mode in compatible Android devices and transfer data to and from the Android device over USB.

• The application note will demonstrate how the VNC2 drivers for Open Accessory Mode (available as of IDE version 1.4.2) are loaded onto the VNC2 and how a simple application accesses them. There will also be a small Android platform app to complete the demonstration.

That in turn leads to a Vinculum II top level page with many links

Which in turn leads to a page with links to many Vinculum II modules including yours.

Various pages have links to precompiled software modules.

You may have seen all this - and it may be that the sheer wealth of information is confusing - but it seems like there is everything needed hereto get your module talking to an Android based device..

SO - tell us if you were aware of all this and, if so, please advise what is unclear so we can attempt to help.