Problems connecting Bluetooth to FRDM-FXS-MULTI-B

[quevedo]

I am having problems connecting Bluetooth to FRDM-FXS-MULTI-B to my desktop computer (external USB Bluetooth dongle).

After flashing the firmware in my KL-25 board and stacking boards together, I pair the Blueradio with my desktop, and 2 COM ports show up. However, when I try to run Sensor Fusion Toolbox (using both auto-detect and manual port selection), nothing happens. When manually selecting one of the bluetooth COM ports, the red circle next to auto-detect button turns blue, but the board image does not change. Also, no data show up in the other tabs.

If I turn off bluetooth radio and connect the board through USB cable, the Toolbox run seamlessly, using the USB COM port.

I cannot run the Android app in my smartphone (Google Play says that the app is not compatible with my smartphone), but I tried a VT100 terminal emulator (Blueterm) on it. When I connected to the blueradio, I started to see characters showing up in the terminal screen, and also the blue LED next to the bluetooth radio lits up.

Any ideas on what can be happening? I am using a CSR bluetooth dongle, and I have tried with both windows generic drivers, and drivers for the same chipset. The ports that show up are COM18 and COM19, on Windows 7.

Thanks in advance.

[maureen]

Hi Antonio,

When you connected to a terminal, was this on your PC or do you have a terminal app for your Android device? Make sure that you're not trying to pair the BlueRadio to multiple devices (i.e., your PC and your Android device) at the same time. If you're trying to get the PC toolbox to work, I'd recommend disabling the Bluetooth on your Android device, POR the Freedom board, then open the PC toolbox.

Mauren

[quevedo]

Hello Mauren,

I tried first to pair the board with the PC bluetooth, with no success. Then I tried to install the app in my smartphone, but the Play Store says that the app is not compatible with my device. So I tried to open a COM port in my smartphone, using a VT100 terminal app (Blueterm), and then I could get some data transfer (I could see characters on the smartphone terminal screen).

I can also transfer data to PC using the USB serial from OpenSDA. I am sure I am not connecting the board bluetooth to both PC and smartphone at the same time. All my tests were done pairing and then unpairing before connecting to the other device.

I will try Thomas suggestions and see what happens. Thanks for your reply.

Antonio

[DavidS]

Hi Antonio,

Here is how I got the FRDM-KL25Z and FRDM-FXS-MULTI-B working:

I connected the USB cable to the FRDM-KL25Z SDA USB connector.

My Win7 laptop then shows the Removable Storage device:

<image001.png>

I then drag-n-dropped the Xtrinsic demo S-Record onto the FRDM-KL25Z (E: ) Storage Drive.

C:\Freescale\Freescale Xtrinsic FXLS8471Q Demonstation\Freedom Images\fxls8471q_CLI_27SEP2013.srec

If you look at the Windows “Device Manager” Ports folder you will see:

<image002.png>

This helps to verify that the OpenSDA is working.  Mine enumerated as COM72.

After it has programmed, disconnect the USB cable from the FRDM-KL25Z SDA USB connector (this USB is connected to the on board K20 debugger MCU) and re-connect it to have a power on reset (POR) occur.

Open a terminal window using 115200 baud, 8-bits, 1-stop, no parity to the OpenSDA COMx (mine is COM72).

Once open, press enter and you should see following on the terminal:

<image003.png>

This shows that the communication channel from the Xtrinsic Freedom board is going through the OpenSDA Debugger interface using a VCOM CDC protocol.

Now disconnect or close the terminal window and open the Demo application:

C:\Freescale\Freescale Xtrinsic FXLS8471Q Demonstation\Freescale Xtrinsic FXLS8471Q Demo.exe

This Xtrinsic application will sniff the COM ports looking for the port that is connected to the FRDM-FXS-MULTI-B.  Once it does the application opens and looks like:

<image004.png>

Pickup and rotate or shack the Freedom board to see the 3-axis data.

Exit demo….disconnect USB cable for SDA USB connector.

Now to get the Bluetooth working I had to follow the instructions in the FXLS8471QDEMOSWUG.pdf.

In short (sorry for pun) you need to add jumpers to following on FRDM-FXS-MULTI-B board:

J6 pin 2-3

J7 on (pin 1-2)

J22 on (pin 1-2)

SW1 on.

Go back to your “Device Manager” and re-connect the USB cable to the either of the USB connector to do a POR of the Freedom system.

In the “Device Manager” window I did Action-->”Scan for hardware changes”…then wait for a bit (less than 30 seconds).

The PC will scan for new hardware and find the BlueTooth COM port and then display them.  Mine looks like:

<image005.png>

Open your terminal application to the lower numbered COM port (mine is COM81) and hit Enter.

You should see following:

<image006.png>

Enter a “?” to see command list.

Now we see that the BlueTooth COM port is working…now disconnect or exit your terminal software application.

Open up C:\Freescale\Freescale Xtrinsic FXLS8471Q Demonstation\Freescale Xtrinsic FXLS8471Q Demo.exe

It will look for the COM port that has the Xtrinsic protocol operating on and let you see the data just like before:

<image007.png>

Lastly…is configured for the Bluetooth COM do not try to use the OpenSDA port for COM or contention issues might happen.  That is the main reason I connected the USB cable to the KL25Z USB to power the system rather than the SDA USB connector which would also have the COM port enumerated.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

David

[quevedo]

Hello David,

Sorry for taking so long to answer. I was working on other projects.

First of all, I had forgotten the jumper on J6 pins 2-3. However, even after correcting that it did not work with bluetooth. It works perfectly if I turn off bluetooth radio (removing jumper on J7) and connect the SDA USB cable, using the SDA COM port. I mean, the demonstration program works perfectly if the sensor board is tethered.

Checking on some forums, I found out that on windows 7 and 8, if you pair a bluetooth radio without a PIN (which is the case), it creates the COM port, but it is unable to open it. The demo program scan all ports, and I notice that it stops in the middle of the scan for a while. It seems that it tries to open the COM port, and after a timeout it moves forward.

I tried to open the port using Realterm and I get an error trying to open the port. Thus, my problem seems to be an issue related to the windows 7/8 bluetooth stack. In short, if using windows 7/8, it will create the port but it will be unable to open it, because when I pair the board radio, it does not require a PIN.

Maybe a firmware update for the bluetooth radio configs would work. If the radio requests a fixed PIN (0000 for example), it should work. I am going to check on the radio documentation to see if it would be possible.

Cheers,

Antonio

[maureen]

Hi Antonio,

I agree, it sounds like an issue with Windows/Bluetooth stack/USB dongle. Were you able to find a Bluetooth firmware update to request a fixed PIN, and did it work?

Thanks,

Maureen

[quevedo]

Sorry for taking too long to reply. So far, I have no idea on how to assign a PIN to the MULTI board bluetooth radio.

[TomasVaverka]

Hi Antonio,

For the PC: I suggest you begin at a known starting point by first removing installed Bluetooth devices via the Win7 “Devices and Printers” dialog. Right click on existing devices and choose “Remove Device”.  In the Device Manager, expand “Ports” and remove any OpenSDA or Bluetooth ports (do not check the “Delete the driver software for the device” checkbox). Then go back to “Devices and Printers” to pair your board. Then retry the tool. See also: https://community.freescale.com/thread/322592

For Android: Make sure you completely close out the application by swiping it to the right in the “Recent apps” listing. Old processes hanging around can cause problems. There are also videos to help at http://www.freescale.com/sensorfusion. Click on the “View on Videos” link on the right side of the page. There is a video dealing specifically with Bluetooth Troubles.

I hope it helps.

Regards,

Tomas

PS: If my answer helps to solve your question, please mark it as "Correct" or “Helpful”. Thank you.

[quevedo]

Hello again,

So far I had no success in running the sensor fusion toolbox in my PC. I have tried the Android app in another device (Google Play says that the app is incompatible with my smartphone... I wonder why, since I use Android 4.1, and the other device although from a different brands, uses same version), and it works  nicely.

From what I have tried so far, it seems that my Windows Bluetooth stack is creating the virtual COM port for the BlueRadio module, but this port cannot be open for some unknown reason. I came to this conclusion after trying to use realterm to see if anything was being transmitted from the board (I did this with an Android VT100 terminal app in my smartphone and it worked). Using realterm only gave me messages that the COM port cannot be open.

It seems that the problem now is actually a windows - bluetooth stack -  USB dongle incompatibility.

Has anyone else had a problem like this?

[quevedo]

Hello Tomas,

First of all, I have not tried teh Android app, since Google says it is not compatible with my smartphone (I wonder why...). I have tried using a VT100 serial terminal app in my smartphone, so I could check if the board bluetooth radio is transmitting. I confirmed that my smartphone was receiving data from the board.

As for the PC side, I have tried everything: removed all devices (blueradio and opensda), then paired blueradio again... nothing changed.

Maybe I have done anything wrong while installing. Maybe the node-locked licence was not installed. But then why does it work when I use the OpenSDA serial port?

Any thoughts?