FTDI 4 PIN Serial Console Cable for Aruba | FTDI 3.3V TTL | USB Type A to 4 Pin Serial | 6 ft (1.8M) | HPE JW071A | AP-CBL-SER | for Aruba Wireless Access Point

great job

The AP side connection is extremely fragile. I added a few layers of heat shrink to make something substantial to grab it. It is also not the connector with the clip, but the usb side does tell you if you have it the wrong way.

I got this to use with some Aruba APs I've had laying around and wanted to reuse. HPE/Aruba decided, for some reason unknown to the rest of the world, to use a pin header instead of an RJ-45 connector for the serial console on these, much to the chagrin of admins everywhere. This adapter seems to work with the units I have, which is nice. Sadly, it's kinda pricey for what it is. You could make one for less, but at the end of the day it's still cheap enough to make it easier to buy this than to deal with chopping up an existing console cable. So would I get this again? Yes. Would I wish it was cheaper? Also yes.

So using one of these to get a serial port on a microcontroller or other device is super useful to be able to debug and sometimes even hack some hardware. The pinout is pretty straightforward and expected and it was nice that they post the pin out right on the product page. When I plugged it in it showed up in my device manager is an unknown device so when I went to upgrade or update the drivers it searched windows online and found them and install them. If there is an FTDI chip inside then that's great because they are considered one of the best USB chip front end makers. To test it I opened up a putty console and then just jumper the TX and RX together using some tweezers to short green and white. Then I just typed hello and saw it come up on my screen. I removed the tweezers and tried to type in nothing happened so I can confirm that I got signal out and signal back in. It also comes on a nice long cable which is super useful

I picked up this FTDI 4 pin console cable to work with Aruba access points, and it has performed exactly as expected. The connection is stable and the cable communicates with the APs without any hiccups. The build quality feels solid, and the 6 foot length makes it easy to work without feeling cramped. Setup was simple since it is plug and play once the drivers are installed. For the price, it offers good value, especially if you need a dependable cable for configuration or troubleshooting tasks. It just works, which is all I needed.