SparkFun Electronics - Breakout Board for FT232RL USB to Serial

Products

Product Info

Breakout Board for FT232RL USB to Serial

sku: BOB-00718

Description: Basic breakout board for FTDI's popular USB to UART IC. Now with internal oscillator and EEPROM, the FT232RL is an impressive IC!

VCCIO is now tied to 3.3V through a solder jumper. You have the option of clearing this jumper and tying the VCCIO pin to 5V or any other IO voltage you need.

Board comes assembled with IC as shown.

Features:

Implements full v2.0 USB protocol
Needs no external crystal
Internal EEPROM for device ID and Product Description strings
Royalty-Free Driver support for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX

Documents:

FT232RL Breakout Schematic
FT232RL IC Datasheet
Eagle Files
FTClean (for removing extraneous/old ports)

Drivers: FTDI Driver Page
Dimensions: 0.9x1.25"

Pricing

	148 in stock backorder allowed

$14.95	price
$13.45	10-99 (10% off)
$11.96	100+ (20% off)

	quantity

click on image to enlarge

Comments

20 comments

Log in to post comments.

	by Member #8450 +2.9 \| November 26, 2006 at 10:33 AM 0
This board rocks! The EEPROM is robust and loaded with options. The breakout board makes it super easy to setup (thanks for putting in the solder jumper for VCCIO). I used this with a 232 device that used RXD, TXD, CTS, RTS, DTR, and DCR pins and the unit worked flawless.

	by dv +0.7 \| October 8, 2008 at 4:18 PM +0.17
I love the fact thay put in the VCCIO jumper. I am interfacing to a 1.8 volt system and use this functionality. Unfortunately the LEDs are also both pulled up through VCCIO and both remain constantly lit when operated with VCCIO at 1.8v. They should have pulled up the LEDs through the dedicated 3.3 volt regulator.

	by Doctor Who +1.8 \| November 4, 2008 at 3:17 PM 0
And where are you connecting to I have mine restrapped to 5v and naturally I don't have a problem per se. I can tell you, (and everyone else) this particular board is the best thing that FTDI created a chip for since they started the process of making USB to anything function chips.

	by McPiebot +2.2 \| December 13, 2008 at 11:52 PM 0
This board is very useful, even when working on rs485, :)

electronictech

+2.3

| December 15, 2008 at 8:26 PM

+0.17

Fast & reliable! I let winXP download and install the drivers automatically, then the board shows up as a COM port, doesn't get any easier than this. I've been using an ATmega8(running AVRbasic @ 16MHz) UART with hyperterminal at 115kbps, without any problems. Also my older version of powerBASIC for DOS can open the COM port without any trouble, so now I have a avrBASIC to pcBASIC bridge via USB.....the FT232R IC is a one stop USB solution.......if only the package wasn't so small, perhaps they'll introduce an SOIC-28 or DIP-28 for the PCB DIY'er.

	by atomriot +1.9 \| February 18, 2009 at 9:13 PM 0
so i'm looking at this and i see the solder jumper, but how would you get it to be 5v? clear the solder jumper and then jump vcc and the 3.3V holes? or is it more complicated?

	by Capissen +1.6 \| February 20, 2009 at 12:45 AM 0
I'm pretty much a total n00b when it comes to low-level electronics stuff, but I am already knee-deep in TTL thanks to this board. True plug-and-play in both Ubuntu 8.10 and Windows XP, no driver load needed. Comes right up as a COM or ttyUSB0. Will definitely order more FTDI products and other stuff from SFE!

	by -henry- +2.2 \| March 1, 2009 at 2:39 PM 0
AAAAHHH! I messed up my EEPROM with MProg, and I uploaded the default file. What can I do to make it work again like it did?

	by -henry- +2.2 \| March 1, 2009 at 2:45 PM 0
Nevermind, I figured out what I did wrong.

	by jimmy3091 +1.2 \| March 30, 2009 at 6:49 PM 0
hey can somebody help me out i bought this board instead of the FTDI Basic Breakout - 3.3V and now i dont know what pins to solder and what way to connect it to my ardupilot can anyone point me in the right direction thanks

Doctor Who

+1.8

| May 18, 2009 at 10:38 AM

Okay, what changed? Originally this was the breakout board for the FT232R part.

While I can see the differences, namely lower power consumption and (theoretically) easier programming, I can not see why the firm didn't simply create a new board number to accommodate this part number.

I have here both the board for the FT232R and now the one for the FT232RL and the differences are apparent.

Even the comments, including mine seem to be strangely wrapped around it. Although the threading seems to be broken.

	by AretCarlsen +5.9 \| June 5, 2009 at 9:46 AM +0.44
I've successfully awoken an Eee 701 (running Ubuntu-Eee) from standby using the ring pin ("RI") on this board. Easy way to conserve a lot of power - the 701 drops from 13 watts active to 2 watts standby, for instance - while allowing lower-power hardware to monitor for wakeup conditions, i.e. certain XBee commands. The other USB boards don't breakout the RI pin.

	by formerisan +1 \| June 29, 2009 at 3:13 PM 0
Has anyone tried successfully with multiple boards working on the same PC?

	by Abraham +1.6 \| July 1, 2009 at 4:16 PM 0
Hello, I am new to this little board and I was wondering if you can connect this board directly to any usb com on my computer without any extra devices? When you interface this board with your Atmega chip do you only connect RX,TX and ground? Thank you, Abraham

	by Yvan256 +1.9 \| February 2, 2010 at 10:09 PM 0
I only connected GND, RX and TX and I'm able to send and receive to a PC. So yes it does work with only 3 wires, the IC is powered by the USB port.

	by LanceW +1 \| July 22, 2009 at 8:26 AM 0
Hello, I'm a programmer trying to develop a 'toy' as a hobby. I'm noob when it comes to electronics, but trying to learn. I basically want to route the information received by an rf module (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8948) to a PC via USB. Is this the board/chip I need? Thanks in advance

	by Simpson +1.8 \| August 29, 2009 at 5:39 PM +0.44
Nice product, but...the board does not include 0.1" header pins for breadboarding, and the 3.3V jumper is not labeled on the board. It also does not come with any documentation, except what's on the website.

	by galaxip +1.3 \| November 6, 2009 at 9:21 AM 0
I have to echo.. This board rocks! I am using it to programm funnel I/O remixed, and it operates flawlessly. I was even able to configure Arduino Alpha 0017 to recognize FIO remixed via this board... Too cool.

	by BootHowTo +4.1 \| January 30, 2010 at 6:45 PM 0
I noticed this "red PCB" version has some differences from the previous "green PCB." The improvements should be mentioned in product description. - two LEDs for Tx and Rx added, - pin layout and pin description on back were changed, Nice changes, I will add the new batch next my purchase.