I have a small dedicated controller built around an Arduino that accepts commands from a PC over USB (serial). The communication is one-way — the controller never sends data back to the PC.
Now I need to extend the controller to handle more duties, but there's no room physically or program-wise, so I'm adding a second box with another Arduino that will accept the extended commands.
I can't alter the controlling PC application or add another USB port to the PC. The application controls the hardware and is in turn driven by a script. It can only talk to one serial port (physical or virtual) at a time. We can alter the script but not the hardware/application. So my hope is that I can just bridge across the D+/- lines to feed the second controller.
If this were straight serial I'd have no problem, but with USB in the middle I see issues ahead, because the PC will want to enumerate both Arduino USBs, right?
Is there a solution here I'm overlooking? Can I use USB passively, as a listener only, with the second controller?
Best Answer
USB CDC serial is quite a complicated protocol. Even if you are only sending serial commands one way, there is USB traffic going backwards and forwards all the time. Even when the virtual serial bus is quiet, the usb host is continuously asking the usb device "do you have anything to send" and the device says "no".
Consider sending the phrase "hi" to an arduino, and getting "hello" back. On the USB bus, it will look something like this:
Host: Do you have a message?
Device: No.
Host: I have a message for you
Device: OK
Host: hi\n
Device: OK
Host: Do you have a message?
Device: No.
Host: Do you have a message?
Device: hel
Host: Do you have a message?
Device: llo\n
Host: Do you have a message?
Device: No.
etc. etc.
These messages will also be mingled in with messages sent to other devices on the same hub (even if you don't have a USB hub in the system, there may well be one inside the computer. So you could easily see messages to your mouse and keyboard mixed in).
The USB protocol is extremely complicated, so splitting it in the way you mention is not going to be practical. You can "sniff" it though. If you connect the D+ and D- lines, it is possible to see the traffic on the bus. As long as the sniffer doesn't try to manipulate the D+/D- lines, the USB bus will keep working. The sniffer would then need to identify which messages were relevant and decode them. Building a sniffer out of an arduino would be difficult but probably not impossible. It almost certainly isn't the best solution for your problem.