Scan Barcode into Node-red through Edge MC

Support, Troubleshooting, & Help
1

I’m interested in scanning barcode information directly into node-red through the Edge MC. If I connect a USB barcode scanner as a KB wedge or as a serial device, I can put barcode data into Node-red on my PC. But, I’m not sure if it is possible to configure the Edge MC device to handle this data to go into node-red. How would I go about getting the driver into the device to recognize the scanner?
When I connect the scanner set up for serial, I see a new device show up in the serial port list, but I get the error shown when I deploy the flow.

Node-red EDGE MC serial error
Node-red serial edge MC

2

Hey Dee,
Thanks for getting in touch!
We are looking into this issue and will circle back early next week with some suggestions!

Thanks,
Het.

4

It’s just a Symbol LS2208 that I’ve configured to emulate a serial device.

5

Hi @dee.brann,

ttyACM0 and ttyACM1 support will be available in OS44 (slated for release in the next two weeks).

6

Hi Matt, Thanks for the update. I look forward to testing this.

7

Hi @maldrich, do you have an update on this release?

Best,
Dee

8

More than 2 weeks have passed, is there any update on OS44 release?

9

Sorry for the delay. We are expediting the EMC release and it should be out to you by Thursday next week (8/19).

1 Like
11

Thanks for the update Sam.

12

Good morning. We tested a serial barcode scanner on an Edge MC this morning running the latest OS44.1 and it still isn’t working for us. The message still shows that we don’t have a driver. We can see a new device show up in the serial port list, but it gives the error when we try to use it. It is ACM0 in the list. This same scanner works perfectly on other systems running Node-Red, such as a laptop or an Opto22 Groov Rio. Can you please let me know if we are doing something wrong?
image

13

We tested this on another unit and it worked with no issues. We rebooted the first unit and it still didn’t work. I may try to do a factory reset on it and see if the firmware update missed something.

14

That’s odd. This change shouldn’t require a factory reset to take affect. I’ll try to test on my end as well to see what’s happening.

15

I may know what happened. The ttyACM0 and ttyACM1 devices do not normally exist on the device and are generated when the scanner is plugged in. When Node RED is starting, it tries to find the ttyACM devices, but if they do not exist at that point; it doesn’t allow you to use them. The same thing probably happens to ttyUSB0 and ttyUSB1 devices too.

Thanks for pointing this out. Restarting only the Node RED service when the scanner is plugged in should fix it for now while I work on a better long term solution.

1 Like
16

Alex, thanks for testing this and getting back with a quick response. We will test this and hopefully it works for us as well.

17

@dee.brann, serial support in Node-RED showed up in OS40, see here. We currently do not support hot-plugging of these serial devices.

18

Currently seeing the same issue. I’m trying to connect a Nicla Sense ME to an Edge MC. Looking through the logs I don’t see any reference to either /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/ttyACM0. Just updated to the latest firmware (eMMC-os44.2-nanopi-r1-stable).