USB to UART alternatives

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Cosford

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Hi guys,

Developing something in a fairly small form factor using an ESP8266. I intend to add a microusb connector for charging of the onboard LiPo battery, but I'm hoping to also allow for firmware updates via this too.
For this purpose I need a USB to UART IC of some description. The 'proper' way seems to be the FTDI FT232 but they're not the cheapest thing. There's the CH340G I've seen floating around too, but would rather use something more commonly available outside of china. Any suggestions of any other 'solder and play' alternatives? (EG, not programming up a USB-capable microcontroller).

Thanks in advance,
Cosford.
 
Long experience
FTDI is the only choice if you want host comptuer (PC, Linux, Mac) drivers that work and do so reliably as OSes evolve.
Prolific is runner up but I won't use them anymore due to numerous bugs in their OS drivers.
No one in 3rd place.

It's all about the OS drivers, rather than the chips.
FTDI does it right.

BUT... what does this have to do with Teensy?
The ESP8266 has a UART. Just connect it to an FTDI USB/Serial 3.3V cable and you are done.
 
The FT232 now has much less expensive siblings. I've successfully used the FT230X in a few designs.

[edit - corrected part #]
 
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Not all anti-counterfeit measures are equal. FTDI didn't think things through and caused quite a bit of disruption on parties far removed from the sourcing of parts. To their credit, they didn't double down on the mistake. After it became obvious that their attempt at anti-counterfeit had failed and had (presumably) unintended consequences, they reversed course.
 
They probably believed nobody would manage to observe and reverse engineer their USB communication, and they didn't anticipate how quickly and widely news of their misdeed would spread, if they even stopped to consider word could get out.
 
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