What is with Aruba and all their different console cables?

So It used to be that Aruba WiFi used the industry standard RJ-45 rollover RS-232 cable that Cisco pioneered. Then they experimented a little with USB to RS-232 built into some of their outdoor APs so that you would just plug a, then standard, USB to USB Mini-B cellphone cable into it and wala! you had serial connection over USB.

Then there was the TTL pins in the low end equipment where 4 pins were exposed allowing them to cut the TTL to RS232 circuit out for cost savings.... and that bled into the 305 model, which replaced the 205 and 105 before it that had RJ-45 consoles, but you know, cost savings....

We recently got some IAP 335s and look! they have RJ-45 consoles again! sweet!

The IAP-335 was replaced recently with the cheaper to manufacture IAP-345.
I open up the box and to my surprise I see this:

What the heck?

Seeing that obvious warning sign with the ! exclamation point on it I knew this would not be a straight USB connection like the outdoor APs, so I googled to see if anyone else had asked about it.

Aruba wants people to buy their new proprietary USB to USB Micro-B adapter called the AP-CBL-SERU so, I googled that part number already guessing that what it would be is a TTL to USB adapter like the old AP-CBL-SER that the low end indoor APs and the IAP-305 used (which we used a trusty Adafruit TTL serial adapter for instead of buying the Aruba one for much more $$.).

So, I grabbed a Micro USB cell phone cable (from an old Blackberry) and hacked off the computer end of it, exposing the 4 wires inside.

Plugged in my Adafruit TTL adapter and crammed the ends of the black, Green and White leads into the Adafruit's sockets for the same colours and fired up the AP.


No dice. Didn't work. Knowing that Black is ground I figured I had the 2 data pins in reverse, so I swapped them, White to Green and Green to White.

Magic!