HiLetgo FT232RL Mini USB to TTL Serial Converter Adapter Module 3.3V/5.5V

good quality

Used this as a UART tool to troubleshoot a PS5. Worked no problem. Worth the price for a niche tool. Just remember to connect the TX output on the board to the RX on the PS5 and visa-versa.

Perfect. Use it almost everyday for over a year now, and it never fails me. Like it so much, I'm going to buy me another one :)

For the price, this is a very nice FT232RL-like USB-to-Serial converter board. I like that it breaks out all of the pins to solder pads to make it easy to integrate into projects and connect things as needed. For basic communications, it does a decent job.I remove a star, however, because it doesn't support all FT232RL functions. I know it's not a genuine FT232RL chip, and I really appreciate the seller disclosing that in the product description and on their website. So I wasn't expecting a "perfect" FT232RL clone. However, what is missing is a detailed description about the differences between this clone and the real FT232RL chip.I needed an adapter that could support Tx/Rx signal inversion to communicate with a single-wire half-duplex FrSky S.port -- something that the real FT232RL chips can do. I was able to use the ft232r_prog tool on Linux to read the EEPROM settings from this board, and the settings read out just fine and reported reasonable values for how it was configured. However, it refused to accept the setting changes to invert the Tx/Rx signals and it would simply switch those settings back to defaults.Those were the only two options I needed to change, so I didn't spend a lot of time trying all of the other option combinations to see what it would accept and what it wouldn't. I assume some of the options, perhaps LED settings or something, might be supported. But, I had no choice for my project except to switch to a board with a real FT232RL chip (a SparkFun board to be exact) and it worked just fine with Tx/Rx inversion, albeit at nearly three times the price.I do like this board and will keep it for other projects that don't require special configuration. For basic communication, I recommend it as a cheap alternative. But, be aware if you need to reconfigure this chip, it doesn't support all FT232RL options that the real FT232RL supports. And they don't tell you exactly what features it supports and what it doesn't. Also, if you are on Windows, the FTDI device drivers might render this board inoperative by changing its USB VID/PID values so Windows won't load the device driver for it. I use Linux, though, and had no problems using this board, except for the special configuration options that it doesn't support.

It is what it is at a good price

I used this to hack my '17 Yaris iA's infotainment center (which is identical to what is in a Scion iA and Mazda3, I believe.) It worked as well as any debugger. A couple dupont jumpers into the appropriate harness, a gator clip to the fins of a heatsink for ground, fired up PuTTY, stuck a stock firmware update image on a USB drive alongside the mod patches/program and ran the update in the car. I watched in the console window as it did it's thing, leaving me with a root shell afterward to run the patches and mods. And now I can mirror my phone, enable touch while driving, turn my car into a WiFi hotspot, play video files on the screen, use custom interface themes/backgrounds/animations, and a whole plethora of neat features. Not bad for <$10 and an afternoon of effort. Lately, I've been getting more into STM32 microcontrollers to make DIY music instruments (Teensy, Daisy Seed, Arduino), so I think this debugger might be relevant there as well and get a second life. I keep it with the cheap STLink V2 clone in my tools, and a coil of 6" dupont jumpers in case the kit is ever needed.

This is the same module that the soft-spoken guy with glasses on YouTube uses, Dronebot Workshop. There are warnings about Windows bricking this unit using a newer driver. Download the FTDI drivers from 2010 or 2013? And after Windows automatically installs a driver upon connection, go ahead and roll back the driver manually picking the one you downloaded. Before plugging it in I downloaded the driver. If you right click on the INF file and click install it will be merged into windows available drivers and you should be able to just pick it from a list manually when changing it.If that's too complicated for you, you probably shouldn't be using this anyway or by the genuine FTDI! There's nothing you're doing with this, programming arduinos and esps, that can't be done with the old driver. It will simply show up as a com port to your computer. you can change the comm number assigned to it in device manager. Be sure to set the 3.3 or 5 volt jumper. If you're doing Dronebot's esp32 cam project, you will need more power (current) if running it through the module to test it without a separate supply. The esp32 cam sucks down some juice! For that use the 5 volt jumper to the 5 volt pin is the esp instead of the 3.3v as he suggests and put the jumper back on 5v. Smooth sailing.