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Serial Monitor

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Jessica Janiuk edited this page Jul 17, 2026 · 3 revisions

Serial Monitor

The Serial Monitor page shows a live log of everything Amidala is sending and receiving — the browser equivalent of a USB serial terminal, useful for debugging without needing a cable plugged in.

Sources

The toolbar has a filter button for each source. All are on by default except RX:

Button Shows
TX Outgoing serial — every string Amidala sends out, as it's transmitted.
RX Incoming serial on the physical ports (S0/S1/S2) — off by default since it can be noisy; turn it on when you need to see what's coming back.
LOG Amidala's own console output — the boot banner, config dumps (the c/d console commands), command replies, and similar. This is how you monitor boot and see the current configuration without a USB cable.
S0 UART0 — the primary WCB/body-controller serial link. Also a Send destination.
S1 UART1 — auxiliary. Only shown if this port isn't already dedicated to something else on your build (e.g. it's hidden entirely on RoboClaw dome builds, where UART1 is the dome's own binary link and isn't monitorable).
S2 UART2 — auxiliary serial. Only shown if enabled in General settings. Also a Send destination.
WCB Mesh traffic (tagged MESH: on the wire). Only shown if WCB Client is enabled — see Connectivity. Also a Send destination.

Toggling a source button only changes what's displayed — it doesn't stop the underlying traffic or affect the firmware.

Controls

  • Pause / Resume — stops polling for new lines. When you Resume, it does not dump everything that arrived while paused; it picks back up from that moment, so you won't get a surprise flood of old traffic.
  • Clear — clears the display. It stays cleared — only genuinely new activity from this point on will reappear. This doesn't affect the device; it's just your browser's view.
  • Send — type a command and send it to whichever of S0/S1/S2/WCB are currently toggled on in the toolbar (independent of the TX/RX display filters, which only affect what's shown).

The log auto-scrolls to the latest entry as long as you're scrolled to the bottom; scroll up to read history and it stops following, without losing anything — new lines just keep accumulating for as long as this page stays open, and you can scroll back down anytime to resume auto-scroll.

Tips

  • Leave LOG on and reboot the droid (or open the page right after powering on) to watch the boot sequence and confirm your config loaded the way you expect.
  • Use the Serial Monitor to verify a newly configured serial string before assigning it to a button. Go to Droid Control, send the string manually, and confirm what appears in the monitor.
  • If a button action isn't sending what you expect, turn on RX and check the monitor for the raw round-trip to spot delimiter or EOL issues.
  • If you're troubleshooting a WCB mesh that won't connect, check LOG for a channel-mismatch warning — see Connectivity.

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