Ok I have everything hooked up but I'm seeing nothing come through Hyperterminal. Any suggestions how to debug? Never used hyperterminal for a serial connection before.
If it was me, I would have used putty. I would test converter first by connecting rx and tx to see if typing echoed back You the connect rx to tx, and tx to rx. Then gnd to gnd
I tried Putty but when I set up the serial connection and hit Open it does nothing (I get that Windows "ding" sound). I'm on Win7 by the way.
Ok this is probably really dumb but I don't follow the loopback suggestion. I have 4 connections from my USB-TTL, 5V, Tx, Rx and ground. Do you mean I should connect the Tx and Rx together?
So if I connect Tx to Rx on the far end of my USB-TTL cable and type into Hyperterminal I see what I type. Does this mean I'm receiving it back or is this just what I'm sending?
Edit: Confirmed that the above method is correct and that loopback is working for my USB-TTL converter. I then hooked up to the PPv4 and briefly got some random characters back. Nothing since then though. Progress of a sort...
Seeing characters you type checks abilty to send and receive. Check speed, 115200 n 8 1, no flow control or maybe xon/xoff. Likely just speed. Don't connect power, just the other 3, If you can't isentify rx/tx then swap the if all else fails