Opening Up a Serial Port

1. Install the latest Arduino IDE Software
   (Note: Legacy IDE 1.8.X recommended)

2. Open the IDE and Attach your Gumband hardware device into your computer

3. Choose the port for your Gumband Hardware device
   (Note: You don’t need the Gumband Hardware board package for Arduino Installed for this)

   • Make sure you are choosing the port that matches your device.

     • Easiest way to do this is to unplug your Gumband hardware device

     • Look at the available device ports and take note of which are available to your computer by default.

     • Plug your device back in, close and open the menu and choose the new device port that appeared.

     Open

     

4. Open the Serial Monitor using the icon in the top right of the IDE

   Open

   

    

5. Once the monitor opens, set “Both NL & CR” option in the bottom of the monitor
   (Note: Setting the baud rate here doesn’t matter)

    

6. Send ‘help’ to check that you can talk to the hardware device, which if successful should send back a list of available commands!

Note: If you get a response along the lines of:
“I can't help you I am merely the bootloader, please program your board...”
your device is missing firmware, or has mismatched firmware and should be reprogrammed.

If you have the Arduino IDE 2.0 or the Arduino CLI installed, you can use this tool on the command line to communicate with your Gumband Hardware device.

1. Open command prompt, terminal, or bash instance

2. Check that the Arduino CLI is installed properly by running arduino-cli. You should get some response from the program with a list of available commands

3. To start the serial monitor tool run arduino-cli monitor -p COM4 , replacing COM4 with your Gumband Hardware device’s port.

4. If the monitor successfully starts, type “help” and hit enter/return to check that you can talk to the hardware device, which if successful should send back a list of available commands!

Note: If you get a response along the lines of:
“I can't help you I am merely the bootloader, please program your board...”
your device is missing firmware, or has mismatched firmware and should be reprogrammed.

1. Download and install PuTTY

2. After opening the application, configure the following settings:

   • Session

     • Serial Line = COM4 (Or whatever port matches your Gumband Hardware device)

     • Speed = 9600 (Doesn’t matter but a value is needed)

     • Connection type → Serial

   • Terminal

     • Implicit CR in every LF → (should be checked)

     • Local echo → Force on

     • Local line editing → Force on

   • Connection > Serial

     • Data bits = 8

     • Stop bits = 1

     • Parity → None

     • Flow control → XON/XOFF

3. Once configured, click “Open” to start the session

4. Type help then press Ctrl + J to append a linefeed character. Hit enter/return to send the command. If successful the device should send back a list of available commands!

Note: If you get a response along the lines of:
“I can't help you I am merely the bootloader, please program your board...”
your device is missing firmware, or has mismatched firmware and should be reprogrammed.