There are tons of articles out there, but I decided to make my own device at the moment:
I had thoughts to make such a device long ago, but at this point of time, the necessity of having this stuff increased significantly. Initially, I found a cheap CP2102 IC, it was cheaper than the huge FT232RL, which has a lot of redundant for me functions. Then I went shopping (here I’m talking about Belarus like 8 years ago) and realized that for us CP2102 is more expensive than FT232RL. Well, my choice was kind of obvious.
Then, I took the standard application schematic from the datasheet, added LEDs on TX and RX lines, and also add a tiny header on the programming pins of IC:
Since the device is small, the PCB is also small, if I would have added usual standing legs for the PCB – it would look stupid and unpleasant 🙂 So what I did instead – was put the double header in each corner, then added a jumper on the header, and woala – nice standing PCB is done.
Soldered, connected to PC, with win7 or win10 you will have drivers automatically downloaded.
Don’t forget to connect your device ground to the ground of the converter! To check if the device works – put the jumper at tx/rx pins and trying to use a terminal software on it – works without issues.