Custom device name for nrf52840 USB dongle in pyserial

[bjornolsen]

I am making an application using nrf52840 USB dongle. 

I am using a python program with pyserial. This works great. 
My only problem is that I want to have a very reliable way to identify the correct USB device.

I am using this code in python to identify the USB device.

def find_nrf_com_port():
    ports = serial.tools.list_ports.comports()
    print("dY"? Available COM ports:")
    for port in ports:
        print(port)

    for port in ports:
        if "Nestlab" in port.description or "USB Serial Device" in port.description:
            return port.device
    return None

this is returning

PS C:\Users\BjornOlsen\Documents\GitHub\nestlab_usb_stick\usb_comm> python3 .\read_serial.py
🔍 Available COM ports:
COM17 - USB Serial Device (COM17)
✅ Auto-detected COM port: COM17
Connected to COM17...

The problem here is that the device is called "USB Serial Device". Not a very descriptive name! 

In my nrf52840 I am using this prj.conf.

CONFIG_GPIO=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_STACK=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_PRODUCT="Nestlab USB Stick"
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_MANUFACTURER="Malsen Medical"
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_SN="0001"
CONFIG_USB_CDC_ACM=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_INITIALIZE_AT_BOOT=y

CONFIG_SERIAL=y
CONFIG_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=y

CONFIG_CJSON_LIB=y

I was expecting that this would change the name to "Nestlab USB Stick" - but alas this does not work.
Note! I do not need it to show up in windows. I only really need the name to be unique when I list USB devices using pyserial.

[Hieu]

Hello bjornolsen,

I believe this is more a pyserial issue than a nRF device issue, so perhaps a more general software engineering or Python forum might be able to help you better.

On the nRF Device, you only need to set CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_PRODUCT like you already did. If you use some library to interact with USB device rather than serial port, you should be able to see the configured name.

I found this thread on Stack Overflow which seems to address a similar issue: python - Pyserial get the name of the device behind a COM Port - Stack Overflow.

Hieu

[bjornolsen]

Hello.


Well I don't know what I am expected to see really.

on windows the device shows up like this

Get-WmiObject Win32_SerialPort | Where-Object { $_.PNPDeviceID -like 'USB*' } | Format-Table Name, DeviceID, PNPDeviceID, Description

Name                      DeviceID PNPDeviceID                                   Description
----                      -------- -----------                                   -----------
USB Serial Device (COM22) COM22    USB\VID_2FE3&PID_0100&MI_00\7&227FB56F&0&0000 USB Serial Device

I don't want to mount the USB device to windows (I am not using it as a USB storage device). 
I would expect that I would see the correct name in device manager. The name in the device manager is the same as what I see over python

Device: COM22
 Name: COM22
 Description: USB Serial Device (COM22)
 HWID: USB VID:PID=2FE3:0100 SER=3702 LOCATION=1-2.2:x.0
 VID: 12259
 PID: 256
 Serial number: 3702
 Manufacturer: Microsoft
 Product: None

[Hieu]

Hello,

What would be shown if you flash this sample onto the dongle? I don't have a dongle with me right now to test.
https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-zephyr/tree/v3.7.99-ncs2-rc1/samples/subsys/usb/console

I wonder if the bootloader on the dongle gets registered with the PC first and causes issue. Do you also have a nRF52840 DK to cross check application behavior?

[bjornolsen]

Hello,

I cloned the library and built the application with no problems using SDK 2.9.

I still see

"COM20 USB Serial Device (COM20)".

in windows device manager I see exactly the same.
Manufacturer: "Microsoft".

I think Microsoft simply do not reconize this USB stick.
"Device USB\VID_2FE3&PID_0004&MI_02\6&b296da&0&0002 requires further installation."

It almost seems that it needs some kind of driver in order to reconize it.

I have not tried the nrf52840dongle on linux. All I really want it to reliably detect it there are many USB devices connected (and that is often the case). But it shows up in windows as a "generic USB" device. that is the isssue.

Maybe I am simply missing a driver.

Note! I tried this in SDK 2.9 and 2.7, same result.

[bjornolsen]

I am having some small success here.

In order for it to show up as a SDFU device AFTER flashing I need to add

CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_VID=0x1915  
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_PID=0x521F  

If I use any other VID/PID it seems to show up as a generic device (unless I register my company with windows I would guess).

It seems that my best bet is to go with this. At least then it shows up a a nordic USB rather than windows generic usb. 

It seems I am unable to set the custom name, but that is not so important as long as I have a clearly distinguishable name.