Arduino Leonardo USB MIDI controller to Bomebox USB

Bome Products
1

HI, hope you are all very well. I have a project that i’m working on and I feel i’ve hit a brick wall.

So, I have an Arduino Leonardo that I have set up using IDE to work as a midi usb device. This works within my PC as an external midi usb device as you would normally use and I can see each note being triggered within IDE serial monitor.

The Problem I have is that what I plug this into the USB port on a fully working BOME Network, the Arduino doesn’t show any TX or RX lights and its L light is on slightly dim. When a button has been pressed, the L light dims to almost nothing and that’s that, no signal output, Bome midi translator cannot see the signal etc etc and the brick wall is there.

Ive read on previous threads that the megaAT16U2 doesn’t work for this scenario, I have the mega32U4 chip on my Leonardo, is it going to be the same outcome for this too?

Please can someone point me in the right direction to get this going.

4

I’m pretty sure BomeBox still supports only the CH340 for the Arduino but I will check on the status to see if there is any new information when the firmware will be updated to support some of the newer Arduino chips. In the meantime, you could still use any Arduino that has a CH340 installed.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care

Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz
5

Thank you Steve, ill get onto buying a new board with this chip included, ill update once ive got to that point, thanks again.

1 Like
8

I suppose that you could also get a USB to serial adapter and connect the serial pins TX and RX directly to the designated serial pins on the Arduino Leanardo but that actually might be more expensive than just buying an Arduino that uses a CH340. Then you would just use the USB port for power and of course the wiring would be a bit messier with the Leanardo. I think that most Arduinos that use CH340 are actually knock offs but I’ve used them with no trouble and they usually come in at a lower price point.

Steve

9

Hi Steve, so ive just been playing with an AZ-Delivery board emulating an UNO R3. Ive managed to get the legacy CH340 driver uploaded to the board and had the sketch working in IDE and its serial monitor working perfectly.

After connecting it via a USB a-b cable to the Bome box i’m now at the point where I cannot see the the incoming signal generated via the Bome box and or via the Bome translator, I think this could be a me issue, not knowing the software properly, ive just purchased a usb midi controller to proof me right or wrong either way.

Admittedly this is the very first time ive actually tried this from the very start up until now, never work with any Bome software/hardware and or IDE/arduinos in my life so this is all new to me, thank you for your support.

10

Well, I"m not sure exactly what you purchased. I would check the serial ports page on the BomeBox to see if the port is recognized first. Then the most likely suspects would be in your sketch or having the baud rate set incorrectly.

These little guys would probably work if connecting to your serial pins on your Ardunio (if the sketch is written correctly).

Again if you don’t need the other features of the Leonardo, it might be best to just by an Arduino knockoff board with a CH340 chip.

I think also the older real Arduinos used a FTDI chip which also works. BomeBox supports about 15-20 different serial interfaces.

Steve

11

thanks for this, just looking at the serial port page on Bome network and have an active device ‘/dev/tty/USB0’ that when I unplug, says its unplugged and vice versa.

12

Making progress then so make sure your sketch is correct (maybe test on PC) and that your baud rates (number of bits and parity too) match. If you use hardware handshake, probably best to turn it off.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Customer Care

Also available for paid consulting services: bome@sniz.biz