My USB to UART bridge adapter arrived today all the way from China. I have been wanting one of these ever since turning up to a raspberry jam to discover they didnt have any more screens left and their network was overloaded meaning i had no way to control my Pi.

So after some research I disovered the raspberry pi supported a serial connection (UART) to control the console. I ordered this device which took 1-2 weeks to arrive (£1.65 so can’t complain…)

I wired it up with

• +5v to pin 2 (optional see below)
• GND to pin 6
• RXD to pin 8
• TXD to pin 10

I then grabbed the driver for it (windows does not auto find a driver) from Silicon Labs

After installing the driver, I opened up device manager, drilled down to Ports (COM & LPT) and found the COM port it was on (COM4 for me).

Now we have all the info we needed, I opened putty up, clicked serial circle tickbox and entered my COM port. Finally I entered the correct speed for the Pi (115200), clicked open and hit enter and I had a login prompt!

Much cheaper than a screen or a router and perfect for Raspberry Jams!

As normal, any questions? Leave them below