How to connect BeagleBone Black development board to PC using USB-to-TTL serial cable
Introduction

BeagleBone Black is an excellent board for starting your practice in embedded development. This will likely extend as an invitation into a long, but rewarding adventure.

BeagleBone Black is simple to configure, easy to use and gives you lots of possibilities for trying out. Along the way, it provides you with the much needed sense of progress.

Problem with starting over as a newbie in embedded world, there is an ocean filled with pieces of information available out there on the world wide web, but each and every piece of information is cryptic . I got myself in this position, as I am switching from C# and .NET.

Masters of embedded trade tend to forget that themselves were beginners at some moment, and they keep on pouring the jargon within most of the tutorials, as if you were knowing half of the question you already asked.

This is where my posts will try to help you. At some point we all are beginners in something, and we should not forget that knowledge builds up with patience and linearity.

I will help you figure out the much needed linearity to build knowledge in areas, where I had the same problems as a beginner.

Note to self: Behind every specialist there was a courageous beginner.

Connect BB with PC via USB-to-Serial TTL

There are multiple possibilities to connect the PC with the BeagleBone, in this tutorial I shall present the manner of interacting via a USB-to-Serial TTL cable.

Bill of Materials:

4 Pin PL2303 USB-to-TTL cable

PuTTY application (for Windows) or

Picomon application (for Linux)

4 Pin PL2303 USB-to-TTL cable

Particular wires explained:

Step 1: Connect the USB side of the TTL cable to your computer

Step 2: Connect the wires to the J1 headers on your BeagleBone Black

Black wire to Pin 1

Green wire to Pin 4

White wire to Pin 5

Actual photo of connecting wires to BB board

Step 3: Establish serial communication with BeagleBone Black

Windows Operating System: use PuTTY (or equivalent, I shall explain how to do it with PuTTY)

Linux Operating System: use Picomon (or equivalent, I shall explained how to do it with Picomon)

How to set up Putty to connect with BeagleBone Black

Download and install PuTTY from https://www.putty.org/

Open PuTTY

1. In the PuTTY Configuration dialog box, select Serial.

2. Type 115200 in the Speed field.

Get the name of the serial port used by the PC for communication

Open Windows Device Manager : Press Windows+R, type devmgmt.msc, and press Enter. Get the name of the port: The name of your BeagleBone’s serial port is listed below Ports.

Get the id of the COM port the serial cable is using

3. Type the name of your BeagleBone Black’s serial port.”COM?”

4. Eventually, save session’s settings for later use.

Click on “Open” to start serial connection with PuTTY.

How to set up Picomon to connect with BeagleBone Black

Install picomon tool
['George Calin']
['Beaglebone Black', 'Embedded Development', 'Putty', 'Usb To Ttl Serial', 'Development Board']