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I have a project that needs 3 serial ports on my ESP32 Dev 38-pin MCU. Two of them are for Nextion touch displays and the other is for a GPS.

The problem from what I understand is that the ESP32 has 3 hardware serial ports, of which only 2 can be used. GPIO 1 and 3 can not be connected to the display during upload and the software serial that is in Arduino IDE 2.0.4 is not compatible with an ESP32.

Can anyone tell me how I can use 3 serial ports?

Thanks.

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  • use ota to upload sketches, it's faster, safer, and more flexible anyway. you can also use a software serial, mos def.
    – dandavis
    Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 6:18
  • It's easy to remap any of the ESP32 serial port pins to other pins, so you're not bound to the standard pinout.
    – StarCat
    Commented Mar 8, 2023 at 10:48
  • Welcome Richard, your question is interesting and a common problem in the Arduino arena. I simply use a SPI or I2C board that outputs RS232. I stumbled across them a few years back and used several, they worked great. I do not remember what they were called but here is a link to one of the many that are available: "andino.systems/extensions/rs232"This was the first search term I used: arduino SPI to RS232 module". Here is another link for the Pi: "forums.raspberrypi.com//…"
    – Gil
    Commented Mar 9, 2023 at 3:32
  • Not a full answer, but, depending on your GPS model, you might be able to use I2C instead.
    – dda
    Commented Jan 19 at 14:21

2 Answers 2

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Yes it is possible to assign any GPIO pins to serial using HardwareSerial library for up to 3 UART Connections. See this link for reference: https://copperhilltech.com/blog/esp32-programming-three-serial-ports-uarts-using-the-arduino-ide/

I'm playing with 2 nextions and esp32 also. would be great to chat with you and brainstorm

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    #define UART1_ODU_BAUD_RATE 2400
    #define U1RXD 32
    #define U1TXD 33

Use this for UART Init in the setup

    // UART1 Configuration
      uart_config_t Configurazione_UART1 = {
        .baud_rate = UART1_ODU_BAUD_RATE,
        .data_bits = UART_DATA_8_BITS,
        .parity = UART_PARITY_EVEN,
        .stop_bits = UART_STOP_BITS_1,
        .flow_ctrl = UART_HW_FLOWCTRL_DISABLE,
        .source_clk = UART_SCLK_APB,
      };
      uart_param_config(NUMERO_PORTA_SERIALE, &Configurazione_UART1);
      esp_log_level_set(TAG, ESP_LOG_INFO);
      uart_set_pin(NUMERO_PORTA_SERIALE, U1TXD, U1RXD, UART_PIN_NO_CHANGE, UART_PIN_NO_CHANGE);
      uart_driver_install(NUMERO_PORTA_SERIALE, BUF_SIZE, BUF_SIZE, 20, &uart1_queue, 0);
      xTaskCreate(UART_ISR_ROUTINE, "UART_ISR_ROUTINE", 2048, NULL, 12, NULL);
      //vTaskDelete(NULL);

Create a ISR function

    static void UART_ISR_ROUTINE(void *pvParameters)                //uart1
    {
      uart_event_t event;
      size_t buffered_size;
      bool exit_condition = false;
      String ODU_PAC_ONE_Temp = "";
    
      ODU_PAC_ONE = "";
    
      while (1) {
        if (xQueueReceive(uart1_queue, (void * )&event, (portTickType)portMAX_DELAY)) {
          if (event.type == UART_DATA) {
            uint8_t UART1_data[128];
            int UART1_data_length = 0;
            ESP_ERROR_CHECK(uart_get_buffered_data_len(UART_NUM_1, (size_t*)&UART1_data_length));
            UART1_data_length = uart_read_bytes(UART_NUM_1, UART1_data, UART1_data_length, 100);
    
            for (byte i = 0; i < UART1_data_length; i++) {
                ODU_PAC_ONE_Temp += (int) UART1_data[i];
            }
          }
          else if (event.type == UART_FRAME_ERR) {
    
          }
        }
        if (exit_condition) {
          break;
        }
      }
      vTaskDelete(NULL);
    }

You will get your data in here (int) UART1_data[i]

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  • 1
    This answer might benefit from a bit of explanation. In what way is this better than a simple port remap?
    – StarCat
    Commented Dec 20, 2023 at 13:56

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