Jonathan and Bill each have a Bus Pirate v3

If you do not have a usb to ftdi cable, you can use a bus pirate. Here is how we setup a bus pirate v3 with firmware and bootloader 4.1 to a Cupcake ( bot 779, batch 11, motherboard firmware XXXX, plastruder firmware XXXX ).

Before plugging in the bus pirate, we need to make sure we are using +5v to communicate with the makerbot motherboard. Normally the bus pirate communicates with 3.3v, but luckily for us an internal pullup resistor can bring it up to 5v. Jump the Vup and +5v pins on the board.

There are only three more wires to connect, then we can setup the software. Connect ground to ground (pin 1 on the makerbot motherboard v1.2), BP MISO to Makerbot RXD (pin 5), and BP MOSI to Makerbot TXD (pin 4). This is because the Makerbot is based on a sanguino, so it is a DCE chip, and the bus pirate is DTE.

Now plug in the usb connection to the computer. The makerbot can be kept off until you open replicatorG.

The bus pirate can show up as /dev/ttyUSBX, with X being any digit. A udev rule to always show up as /dev/buspirate is convenient.

• Get the serial number of this particular bus pirate:

# sudo udevadm info --attribute-walk -n /dev/ttyUSB0  | sed -n '/FTDI/,/serial/p'

• And replace XXXXXX with that serial number:

# sudo echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{serial}=="XXXXXX", GROUP="users", MODE="0660", SYMLINK+="buspirate"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/98-buspirate.rules

• Reload the rules for udev, and re-plugin the bus pirate

# sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

Install minicom, and run

# sudo minicom -s

* Navigate with the arrow keys and enter, choosing Serial port setup and pressing 'A' to change the serial device to '/dev/buspirate'

* Set Hardware Flow Control and Software Flow Control to off

* Exit, and choose Save setup as dfl so we can skip this part next time

Now exit and minicom should automagically connect to the bus pirate, giving you a command prompt.

Type M for the menu, then choose

• 3 for UART mode
• 7 for 38400 baud
• 1 for 8, NONE bits and parity
• 1 for 1 stop bits
• 1 for 1 receive polarity
• 1 for Open drain (H=Hi-Z, L=GND) output type

You should be back at the serial prompt.

• Type CAPITAL W to set the power supplies on
• Type p and then 2 to turn the pullup on
• Type (1) to run the UART bridge macro

The bus pirate output has already been set to 38400 baud, but we now need to change the baud rate between the computer and bus pirate to 38400.

• Type B and then 7 to set the bus pirate baud to 38400. Do not press space yet!
• In minicom, press Control-A and then p to access the Comm Parameters screen
• Press b and then b again to bring the terminal baud rate down to 38400 (from 115200) and then press enter
• Now you can press space

If all is good, the bottom of minicom should show we are communicating at 38400 8N1 and you are back to the regular menu.

• In minicom, press Control-A then CAPITAL X to exit without reset

Congratulations, you are now ready to use replicatorG to test your makerbot!

When updating the plastruder firmware, make sure to be at 19200 baud rate!