To change this, go back to the Terminal setup menu and select ‘Echo Local’.Īnother handy trick is the ‘Clear Screen’ and ‘Clear Buffer’ options.
Tips and TricksĪs you can see, Tera Term is extremely easy to use for serial monitoring, however by default, unless your program prints the entered values back to the terminal, you won’t be able to see the characters entered. However, if you use a baud rate other than the default 9600, or want to change other settings, go to Setup > Terminal to view the terminal port settings for that connection and adjust as needed.
For most maker platform board such as Arduino or Particle, the default settings for Tera Term will already suit the connection settings native to Arduino/Particle. Now that you’re device is connected, we’re good to go. Note that a serial port connection can only occur between 2 devices so if a device already has its serial port in use, it will not appear as a device until you disconnect it from the connection. The new connection screen may pop up when you first open it, otherwise select ‘New Connection’ (Alt + N) from the ‘File’ menu.Ĭhoose the ‘Serial’ option and then select the appropriate board from the drop-down menu. The first thing you’ll want to do is create a new connection to a device.
Fortunately, most boards have a USB port on them for programming and communication which allows you to monitor the Serial port directly over USB, but if you don't have a USB port on your board, you can follow the instructions on our ' USB-Serial Converters' tutorial on how to connect it up.Ĭlick here to download Tera Term, and once you’ve got it open, we can begin. To connect your device to a computer you'll need a Serial-USB converter. It’s simple, open source, and free! It’s what we recommend if you’re a Windows user. But what if you’re using a Particle device such as the Photon or Electron, or a Raspberry Pi without a display, or any other board with a Serial port? Well, fortunately, there are plenty of serial terminal programs available to use, but one of the most popular is Tera Term. Most microcontrollers have a serial port that can output UART data over the TX/RX lines, and if you’re used to using Arduino, you’ll take the built in Serial Monitor for granted. One of the best ways to do this is to send/receive data over a serial port. Monitoring what’s happening inside your microcontroller is an invaluable tool for prototyping and debugging.