Getting Started

Requisites

  • Two PL485-EK boards
  • PC host(s) with serial terminal emulator (e.g. PuTTY)

Power-Up

The board has to be powered by means of the included USB cable or from an external DC power supply ranging from 6V to 48V. Refer to the PL485-EK User Guide for more details about the power supply requirements. When the board is powered, the 3V3 and 5V LEDs turn on.

The PHY PLC&Go example runs a chat application between two or more endpoints using Microchip PLC modem boards. Any endpoint can transmit a message, which is received by the other endpoints in the network. LED0 (green) blinks to indicate that the application is running. LED1 (red) flashes when a PLC message is received, and LED D15 (yellow) flashes at each transmission.

If the PHY PLC&Go example is not programmed in the board, the latest version of the code can be found in the \thirdparty\g3\phy\atpl360\apps\phy_plc_and_go\samg55j19_pl485_ek_cenb folder of the Microchip G3-PLC stack.

Running PHY PLC&Go

Figure . PLC Test Setup
Attention: Make sure that the applied power respects the DC power connectors’ polarity.
  1. Connect each PL485-EK board to the PC host using the included micro USB cable and the USB device connector (J5). A virtual COM port will be enumerated for each board. If required, install the Atmel USB CDC Virtual COM driver.
  2. Run two terminal emulators, selecting the serial COM port assigned to each board at 921600bps.
  3. Send a message from one board by writing any text in the terminal emulator and pressing ‘ENTER’. The message is received and shown in the terminal emulator of the other board.
  4. Modify the transmission configuration by pressing ‘CTRL+S’ in the terminal emulator to test the different modulations.

For more information about the PHY PLC&Go example, refer to the AN3400 - PLC and Go application note.