Q:

Control RaspberryPI 3 via Serial/GPIO

So I'm working on a bit of a little project with a PI for work.
I'm making the PI into a little portable NAS where i can connect it to a network and on boot, it will email me its IP Address (if it gets one). In the case where the network is static, i want to have a way to connect to my PI's terminal and configure a static IP without the need of connecting the PI to a display and mouse and keyboard etc. I want to connect to my PI via Putty and get to the console.
I followed this tutorial on enabling the /dev/ttyS0 port which is the GPIO on pins 14 and 15. And from my understanding, this should allow me to do what i want but not sure what the next step is to connect the PI to my PC so i can Putty into it.
I was looking at GPIO to USB or something, but unsure what to use.
Anyone done this before or similar and knows what i should get to achieve what i want?
Many thanks!

A:

You need an USB to TTL cable. TTL indicates 3.3 V compatibility. "Normal" USB to RS-232 cables work with higher voltages and can damage the Pi.
Example USB to TTL cable : https://www.adafruit.com/product/954

