I purchased a sparkfun Inventor’s kit in order to learn LabVIEW and ran into problems installing The LINX software onto the sparkfun RedBoard because the COM port would not show up in the wizard.  I could not find any help online but then figured out how to make it work.  I finally figured out how to get around this issue and have written a step-by-step tutorial so you can too…

How to Fix RedBoard COM Port Does Not Show Up In LINX Firmware Wizard

Hardware/Software:

• MacBook Pro
• OS 10.10.3 Yosemite
• Oracle VM VirtualBox
• Windows 7
• SparkFun Inventor’s Kit for LabVIEW

Step 1: Run LabVIEW MakerHub.

LabVIEW 2014

Step 2: From the Tools menu select: MakerHub > LINX > LINX Firmware Wizard…

Choose Tools > MakerHub > LINX > LINX Firmware Wizard…

Step 3: Choose “Sparkfun” from the Device Family menu.

The Device Type should be RedBoard, and the Firmware Program Interface should be “Serial / USB.”  Then click Next.

Select Sparkfun from the Device Family Menu (the other options are standard)

Step 4a: Here’s my work-around.

Now you are supposed to pick the COM port that the RedBoard is on from the drop-down menu but it is no where to be found!

The COM port for the RedBoard is not in the list, even if you click Refresh

To get past this point you must know the COM port your Windows 7 machine assigned to the RedBoard and this is how you determine it:

Step 4b: Click on the Start menu and right-click on Computer and then click on Properties.

Start Menu: Right Click on Computer, Select “Properties”

Step 4c: Click on Device Manager in the left column of the Control Panel Window:

Click on Device Manager

Step 4d: Click on the triangle next to Ports.

Step 4e: Take note of the COM port number that is a Serial port:

USB Serial Port is COM7

In my case the RedBoard is on COM7.  If you don’t believe that it really is the RedBoard you can double-click on that port and you’ll see that FTDI is the Manufacturer (and FTDI makes the USB interface for the Arduino):

FTDI is the Manufacturer of the device on COM7

Step 4f: In the text box that says ASRL1 select and delete all the text.

If you select ASRL1 and delete it there will still be other text in there (:INSTR), delete that too, until the box is blank.

Delete all the text from the textbox

Step 4g: Type in COM7 (or whatever COM port your RedBoard was assigned) and then click Next.

Manually type the COM port into the box

Step 5: Select the default Firmware version.

In the next window the default Firmware version should be automatically selected, “LINX – Serial / USB” and then click Next.

Select LINX – Serial / USB (default choice) from the drop-down and click Next

Step 6: Update the Firmware.

Watch as the Rx and Tx lights on the RedBoard flash, which tell you that it is working:

If the Rx and Tx lights flash you know it is working

You’ll also see that the “Uploading Device Firmware” progress bar moves across the window (but it would do this even if you didn’t set the correct com port and clicked next and it wasn’t working):

Uploading Device Firmware