Generic $2.5 USB to Serial adapter for Vista and Linux

I decided to check out those cheap USB to Serial adapters sold on eBay. And even though the description says they are only Windows 98/2000/XP compatible, it worked in my Ubuntu 8.10 out of the box and after a driver install also in Vista 32-bit.

The Chipset in the cable is: Profilic PL2303

Drivers for 64-bit Vista / Windows 7 here.

Lets hope it also works in OpenWRT without compiling kernel modules... I think I'll buy a bunch of these to strip out the serial connector and integrate them in various projects. Needless to say - I like the price point :)

The item was this. And the seller store can be found here.

Ubiquiti Networks Routerstation based OpenWrt UAV

I've had an arduino board and cheap ebay three axis accelerometers + GPS + compass sensors for a while, but I think that using just arduino is a bit limiting and good serial modems for telemetryare quite expensive.

I want something more scalable, and therefore have been thinking about the Routerstation platform. It's only about 50-60€ + postage, and it features 680Mhz MIPS 24K CPU, 64MB RAM, and 16MB Flash and most importantly Srrial and USB 2.0. Atheros mini-pci wlan-boards can be used for connectivity and are dirt cheap on ebay.

So if you have USB, you have basically everything to play around with. UMTS modems, webcams, USB-serial ports, gphoto2 usb interface to your digital camera etc.

Please share your thoughts and give other suggestions on embedded linux platforms.