---
title: "[TIP] Fixing Garbage Serial / UART Communication"
description: "If you're using serial (or UART) communication between two devices and seeing data corruption, there could be a simple fix. For example you might be trying to communicate…"
canonical: "https://www.baldengineer.com/tip-fixing-garbage-serial-uart-communication.html"
author: "James Lewis"
date: "2015-01-06T15:02:43Z"
lastmod: "2022-04-04T20:47:10Z"
categories: ["blog"]
tags: []
---

# [TIP] Fixing Garbage Serial / UART Communication


If you're using serial (or UART) communication between two devices and seeing data corruption, there could be a simple fix.  For example you might be trying to communicate between two Arduino boards, using one Arduino Uno as a Serial-to-USB adapter for another board, or have an Arduino connected to a  Raspberry PI.

If you're getting corrupted transmissions that _get worse at lower speeds_, double-check you have common grounds between the boards.  Inductive coupling is probably letting the communication work.  Without the common ground though, your transmission is going to be susceptible to all kinds of noise.

[![Tweet: Remember. Ground is a reference. It needs to be common to everything in the circuit.  http://ctt.ec/l6SX3+](http://clicktotweet.com/img/tweet-graphic-4.png)](http://ctt.ec/S1nZf) Remember.  Ground is a reference.  It needs to be _common_ to everything in the circuit.