Serial Monitor outside of Arduino

[DJohnstone]

Is there an easy way to monitor the serial debug messages on a Teensy 3.1 outside of Arduino? I'm trying to print debug messages inside of the a Audio library and I'm not having any luck with Arduino's built in Serial Monitor app.

 

[stevech]

Do you seek an alternative to the Arduino Built In Serial Monitor?
There are many such programs: I use Bray's Terminal (Freeware). Just set Bray's to the same COM port number and click its DTR for TX button.

Otherwise, you can change your debug messages to use Serial2 or Serial3 instead Serial. Then connect a 3.3V to RS232 adaptor to the Serialx pins of the Teensy, and the adaptor to a USB/Serial converter plugged into a PC.

Or is your need something other than the above?

 

[Headroom]

Care to elaborate about something more technically specific than "not having any luck " ?

 

[MichaelMeissner]

You could use something that reads serial lines and prints it. You would have to change 'serial' to 'serial1', 'serial2', or 'serial3', depending on which hardware serial line you are using. You do have to search around for a display that does 3.3v or do the appropriate level shifting.

I haven't used this, but Sparkfun sells some LCD's that take serial input and are 3.3v, such as: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9067. If you just want to write out 1-4 numbers, the Sparkfun 7-segment Serial display can be driven from a Teensy: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11441.

I've bought a LCD and an OLED monitor from digi-ole, and they took serial (though you need to use their library, and change the Serial call to Serial1): http://www.digole.com/index.php?productID=527.

Another approach is to use an I2C or SPI display, again you might need to level shift if it is 5v.

 

[DJohnstone]

Care to elaborate about something more technically specific than "not having any luck " ?

Thanks guys, I guess more specifically I'm trying to print debug messages during the initialization of Audio Library objects. I can't start the Arduino serial monitor fast enough after loading my project to catch these initial messages.

Also, it would be nice to be able to print and monitor serial debug messages when building outside of Arduino with an external make system. I use Teensy-Template, which is great for building externally.
I am developing on a Mac.

 

[stevech]

Thanks guys, I guess more specifically I'm trying to print debug messages during the initialization of Audio Library objects. I can't start the Arduino serial monitor fast enough after loading my project to catch these initial messages.

Usually, if you code this

Serial.begin(9600);
while (!Serial)
    ;
delay(1000);

The program will wait in the while loop until your chosen monitor program (built-in or external such as Bray's terminal), is connected (and asserting DTR). Or you can replace the code above with just delay(5000); to allow you 5 seconds to get the terminal connected.

Also, it would be nice to be able to print and monitor serial debug messages when building outside of Arduino with an external make system. I use Teensy-Template, which is great for building externally.
I am developing on a Mac.

This can be done with a Mac compatible terminal emulator that uses the USB serial interface and virtual serial port, same concept as in MS Windows' COMn, but for /dev/ttyxxx

 

[nox771]

I can't start the Arduino serial monitor fast enough after loading my project to catch these initial messages.

Another way to fix that - in setup or main loop have it wait until a pin condition occurs (I usually loop until a digitalRead(pin) returns zero - set one of the pins to be an input with pullup, and then use a button or wire-touch to GND - app starts when the pin goes low).