ESP32-S3 communicating with Camera Lens Motor that has a FT232RL USB connector

[zeeeman]

Hi all - I'm finding it a bit tricky to communicate with a camera lens motor through my ESP32-S3 using serial communication. I'm using the Freenove ESP32-S3 WROOM.

The camera lens motor has a cable with a USB-A male connector and an FT232RL chipset. Connection parameters are ASCII protocol, 115200 baud, 8-N-1. The motor expects ASCII Modbus messages and it doesn't provide any confirmation messages (on receipt, or on connection, etc.) so I can't tell if it is connected successfully.

If I connect the motor cable directly to my computer's USB port I can send messages successfully to the motor and control it.

I've tried the Arduino ESP32-S3 "USBSerial" sketch that outputs messages on connect, disconnect, and will echo what is sent from the USB UART port on the USB OTG port. This works when I connect both the USB UART and the USB OTG to my computer - the messages from USB UART are being shown on USB OTG and I'm getting "CDC CONNECTED" and "CDC DISCONNECTED" messages.

However, when I connect my ESP32-S3 with a cable from the USB OTG port to my camera lens motor (as shown in the picture) USB connector, I'm not getting a "CDC CONNECTED" message. I've tried sending a message through to the motor but it's not responding (and without confirmation messages I can't tell if it's connected successfully).

I'm open to using the pins on the device rather than the USB OTG connector if that would be simpler.

I have attached a screenshot of the connections I currently have.

If anyone has any ideas on what I'm missing and can help, it would be appreciated!

Device:
https://github.com/Freenove/Freenove_ES ... ROOM_Board

[ESP_Sprite]

You're trying to connect two USB devices together; that doesn't really work. It would work if you could configure the S3 USB port as a host, but I don't think Arduino has support for that yet. Better to skip the FT232 entirely and connect the serial wires to an ESP32 UART.

[zeeeman]

Thanks for the reply... No wonder I was struggling! I'll look to connect cables directly without the FT232RL in the way.

Much appreciated for the swift response!

[zeeeman]

Thank you, it worked when I connected the RX, TX, GND wires from the motor cable directly to the pins on my ESP32.

Appreciated!

[ESP_Sprite]

Good to hear you got it to work!