FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s • Hacker News Board

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#311

Post by smilekzs » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 5:23 PM UTC

stinos wrote: post #85

smilekzs wrote: post #45

FT232 isn't very stable to begin with. CP210x is a much better alternative from my experience with FT232, PL2303 and CP210x.

Can you elaborate on your problems with FTDI? We're refactoring some hardware with FT232, smallest package I think, and alternatives are welcome. Would CP210x allow for lower latency/less stalls on Windows or are the FTDI limits on that point just the limits of the usb stack on Windows?

FTDI isn't very stable on long runs, say, a few days. Buffers get corrupted (nothing wrong on the MCU side as we tested) and all the PC side receive is garbage.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#312

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 6:27 PM UTC

tmp26 wrote: post #211

jessaustin wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: are you participating in this thread as a greenbean because you want to hide your identity from harassment from those who disagree with your unpopular opinion, or because you want to hide the fact that you are affiliated with FTDI?

Honestly? I rotate accounts on most major sites periodically. It is a tinfoil-hat foible, a way to distance myself from the exceedingly dumb things I have almost certainly said in years past. Unfortunately for me, I chose today to rotate. I don't work for FTDI; I'm not even British. But I did build that Adafruit altoid tin MP3 player eight years ago, which used a FT232. Why am I wasting my time on this argument? I do…

I hope you at least feel like you got your answer.

Yes, I take this answer at face value. I didn't really think there were only two possibilities here. Perhaps I was a bit blunt in the hopes of eliciting a "real" answer like this one.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#313

Post by bsder » Sat, Oct 25, 2014, 7:45 PM UTC

Vendan wrote: post #192

bsder wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analog side. Being able to do the voltage regulation and oscillator operation without external components is actually non-trivial.

The half the cost parts already have internal oscillators, and I have yet to see a use of an FTDI type chip where there's no other microcontroller, so you have voltage regulation already, not to mention the 5V from usb. All your points = invalid.

> I have yet to see a use of an FTDI type chip where there's no other microcontroller, so you have voltage regulation already, not to mention the 5V from usb. All your points = invalid.

Um, I don't understand what use case you have that has a microcontroller and would ever want to use an FTDI chip. As you point out, if I have a microcontroller, I have voltage regulation, and I likely have USB and a UART.

I will point out that 5V USB isn't all that useful by itself. Most microcontrollers won't work natively at 5V, so you need a regulator, and you need to obey the USB inrush specs, and you probably need a switching regulator since you only nominally have 100mA (even though everything normally supplies more nowadays), etc.

There are only two times I want to use an FTDI chip:

1) I have some old thing that I have to update that A) uses RS232 and B) is standalone.

2) Somebody Else's Problem -- the software idiots are insisting on RS232 communication to something and that idea is stupid or redundant (it already has an SPI or I2C interface that is much better and there is a microcontoller). I can slap a USB micro connector and one of these chips on the board and tell the software guys to get lost until they pull their heads out of their asses.

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#314

Post by Vendan » Sat, Oct 25, 2014, 11:54 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #313

Vendan wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The half the cost parts already have internal oscillators, and I have yet to see a use of an FTDI type chip where there's no other microcontroller, so you have voltage regulation already, not to mention the 5V from usb. All your points = invalid.

> I have yet to see a use of an FTDI type chip where there's no other microcontroller, so you have voltage regulation already, not to mention the 5V from usb. All your points = invalid. Um, I don't understand what use case you have that has a microcontroller and would ever want to use an FTDI chip. As you point out, if I have a microcontroller, I have voltage regulation, and I likely have USB and a UART. I will point…

Yes, but what you are trying to say is that oscillators and voltage reg are really complex and hard, but they aren't, parts that are half the cost have them and much much more complex functionality. The best argument I've seen so far is that the FTDI stuff has additional functions, like built in GPIO pins, which other USB-RS232 converters don't have. IMHO, the FTDI stuff is just way too expensive for what it does. For example, look at Silicon Labs C8051F387-GM. Tiny little chip, runs off of 2.7v to 5.25v, talks USB, has an internal oscillator, and costs $1.72 per unit. FT232RL only goes as cheap as $2.65 per unit if you order 2000. Talk about a major price difference...

Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232s

#315

Post by rewolff » Sat, Nov 01, 2014, 3:57 PM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #238

wtallis wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The counterfeits aren't seeking USB compliance certification, they're just trying to provide 100% compatibility. Are you saying that reverse engineering and spoofing for the sake of compatibility is wrong? Or do you think that USB vendor IDs are covered by some trademark?

Seems like there's a few people who don't seem to understand the difference between copyright, trademark, criminal and civil law (op above you included). The only law broken by the counterfeiters is trademark violation for printing the FTDI logo on their chips. That's it! Everything else they did was legal. Otherwise, Intel and AMD would be bricking CPUs right now. Reverse engineering is legal. Emulation is legal. Cr…

Well... The Fake's logos are significantly fatter than the FTDI logo. It spells FTDI, but it's not the FTDI logo....

:-)