USB to Serial for BS2 Homework Board

GasPipe

I am new to this forum and would like to thank in advance anyone who can help.

I have a good basic electronics background and am a amateur radio operator.·

Being a complete newbee to the controller world, I purchased What is A Microcontroller from the shack and hurried home to check out this new world.

I was greatly excited to get my new microcontroller plugged up to my laptop when I realized that I have no serial port, only USB.
Dashed, before any blinking lights or anything.

Being pretty handy with a soldering iron and whatnot is there any hack for this cable that is cheap and easy?

I have just started looking so any links or other info would be greatly appreciated.

I would hate to kill my new stamp before I got anything out of it.



PS I could not find a spell check on the posting page so I apologize for any errors.

Noor

Hi GasPipe,
you can buy serial- usb convertor from shack or any elctronic store

GasPipe

I just came from the Shack and the cable they showed me was 6' long and was almost $40. Holy cow.

I like the one in your post but they didn't have one like it in the store.

I will keep looking for a wiring diagram or something, I know there is a cheap hack somewhere as I have the connectors just not together LOL.

Thanks for your interest Noor!

Mike Green

For $40, you could buy a Parallax USB to RS232 adapter and ship it overnight.

www.parallax.com/Store/Accessories/CablesConverters/tabid/166/txtSearch/usb2ser/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/378/Default.aspx

These are just an FTDI USB to serial chip plus a MAX232 logic level to RS232 converter. Check FTDI's website and documentation for sample circuits.

www.ftdichip.com/Documents/DataSheets/DS_FT232R_V205.pdf

Post Edited (Mike Green) : 1/3/2010 6:33:02 PM GMT

GasPipe

For under $15 good deal, I think I will skip the overnght though.


Thank you Mr. green!

Bastler

Hi all,

I just joined this forum. I have the Basic Stamp Starter Kit Vers. 1.0 which still works with my 10 year old Thinkpad 240X. Just before Xmas I bought the HomeWork kit from R/S. Since I wanted to use it (if possible) with my MSI U100 netbook I also needed the USB to Serial Interface which came yesterday.

I downloaded and installed the driver and the the Basic Stamp Editor. It worked off the· bat. I wasn't sure the netbook could handle this. It can. What a deal: the netbook cost·$290, my first computer OSI C1P with 4 KB memory cost over $300·more than·30 years ago.

Now that·I'm up and running I'm looking forward to doing some of the HomeWork projects with my grandsons Kurt and Alex.

Klaus Ernst NYC

BallNmIKE

I just got a USB to Serial adapter for $4 thats it, includes shipping from ebay seller digi-accessary··http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230414432278&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT·. Like I said I just got it today and It actually works. Doesnt come with any documentation, but is fully featured. only took like 4 days to receive from this seller. If you need one asap, buy it from your local electronics store, save the receipt and return it when your $4 one comes in. Thats what I am doing.