I need the following to work. Is there a problem with using either combo of usb to serial chip?

I am trying to build an automated tester to test another pcb that has a mcp2200 chip on it. so i'm thinking of using an mcp2200 and a tiny to send messages through the other pcb's usb port to test that it's working. this is for production, testing 100 boards a day. so i really just need to know if this following architecture will work:

 

What about it do you think wouldn't work?

 

What about it do you think wouldn't work?

I dont know. I guess I got worried since some pc need drivers. I figured i was just overthinking it. just wanted to make sure i wasn't missing anything.

 

You will have to know how to use the USB interface, but the drivers in the case of the PC are to talk to the hardware which varies according to manufacturer.

 

he is trying to use USB to serial converters back to back without PC. not sure if that can work as this is not simply a transceiver - it has own controller that need to be programmed. this is done by driver. normally driver would use the USB side to access the controller and program it. not sure if RS232 side can be used to do that. even if it can, ATTINY is most likely way too too low on resources to handle something like that.

so my approach would be to add intermediate node, like embedded PC or RPI. or just do everything in it (why bother with lightweight like ATTINY).

 

Yes, but it depends on what he expects to do. I didn't have time to ask why he is doing this. But it is—in principle—possible to make one side appear (for example) as HID, and use HID commands to configure and communicate with the other, and even change over the other way.

I am not sure why the TS wants this arrangement but clearly I the ordinary course of thing one side would be a PC or dedicated SBC (even an RPi Zero would work more easily).

As far as programming the configuration into the NVRAM—that has to be done no matter how the chip is being used, and may well be a separate consideration.

 

No. It will not work. You must have a USB HOST device to control communication to a USB SLAVE device. Two slave devices cannot communicate directly.

For simple serial communication between two two boards you could use an ESP32 to act as a host device, and forward the output from one board to thevl other.