# Adding CP210x USB to Serial converter support to m500

Source: https://forum.modalai.com/topic/3758/adding-cp210x-usb-to-serial-converter-support-to-m500
Category: Development Drones (https://forum.modalai.com/category/44/development-drones)
Tags: m500
Posted: 2024-09-01 12:25:43 UTC by boga
Replies: 4 · Views: 1479

## boga · 2024-09-01 12:25:43 UTC

How do I add support for CP210x USB to Serial converter on my m500 drone? 
I know that it is a driver / kernel module issue, but I can't figure it out. Connecting Arduino UNO creates a ttyACM0 (virtual serial) right away. But the device that I need to connect has CP210x serial converter chip onboard. 

I found the tutorials below, but as I am new to this, I am unable to figure it out. Help please!
https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/system-image-build/voxl-build/-/blob/master/README.md#building-the-kernel-and-wlan-module
https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/system-image-build/meta-voxl/-/tree/master?ref_type=heads
https://www.silabs.com/developers/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers?tab=downloads
https://askubuntu.com/questions/941594/installing-cp210x-driver

## Reply by Eric Katzfey (ModalAI staff) · 2024-09-02 16:07:13 UTC

@boga Can you use an FTDI based converter instead?

## Reply by boga · 2024-09-04 14:36:21 UTC (in reply to Eric Katzfey)

@Eric-Katzfey, yes. I came up with the same solution in parallel. I am already able to read data. FTDI based converter appears as ttyUSBX (X=0...n).
Also, while we're at it... If I would use the VOXL Flight port J10 to read in UART data, what is the port number from the software side?
Is there a documentation about that?

## Reply by Eric Katzfey (ModalAI staff) · 2024-09-04 16:22:33 UTC (in reply to boga)

@boga On a VOXL board J10 is mapped to the DSP and so you have to go through our libvoxl_io library to use it: https://docs.modalai.com/libvoxl-io/

## Reply by Alex Kushleyev (ModalAI staff) · 2024-09-04 21:06:29 UTC (in reply to Eric Katzfey)

this should be helpful as well : https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-serial-io/ , which points to a uart loop back test app for DSP-based UART ports (https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/libvoxl_io/blob/master/lib/apps/voxl-uart-loopback.c)