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USB to Serial (RS232 Adapter) project advice PLEASE — Parallax Forums

USB to Serial (RS232 Adapter) project advice PLEASE

Indisputable AttitudeIndisputable Attitude Posts: 10
edited 2010-12-09 13:41 in General Discussion
I have a school project that I'm making and it must use RS232 protocol in it. Well, since most computers made these days don't have a serial port, I want this project to have USB capabilities. Anyway, Parallax makes a nifty little device that allows you to have USB convert over to RS232, exactly what I'm looking for.

Well, I need some method of sending a text file out through a USB port. How do I do that? In the olde tymes, every computer had Hyperterminal and it required only a few clicks to get it done. Now, since I'm using Windows 7, Hyperterminal is GONE. What's the course of action? All I want to do is send a text file out through a USB port.

I'm using Parallax's nifty USB to Serial converter, so, I have the right hardware.

Incidentally, here's the direct link to the PDF for the chip:http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/IC/FT232R_v104.pdf

There's also another chip on the other side of the adapter, but I haven't started to look for the datasheet yet.

Would it be possible to get the schematic for this little gizmo? Then I could get the maximum use out of it.

Anyway, what I really need for starters is a way to send a text file through the USB to serial Adapter pn 28030. What's the correct course of action?

Comments

  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2010-12-09 06:36
    There are quite a few USB > Serial RS232 adapters available for PC's, most of which work quite well. The Parallax unit is a very good choice. The FT232 chip is the USB > Serial converter, and the other chip is the RS232 line driver.

    As far as I know the older version of Hyperterm (winXP) will still work with Win7, and there are other terminal programs out there. Google "terminal emulators" to get a list. If you want to download text or binary files get one that supports the format you need. I use Realterm, which works well for most of what I do.
  • schillschill Posts: 741
    edited 2010-12-09 06:53
    The Parallax adapters work very well. I try to stick with USB-serial adapters that use the FTDI chips (like Parallax uses) because they always seem to work well.

    You will need to install a driver on your computer. You can get that from Parallax or www.ftdichip.com . Once the driver is installed and you plug in the adapter, a new serial port will show up on your computer (:COMx, where x is the next available number).

    As far as any program on the PC is concerned, it's just another serial port. Some (mostly much older) programs can not handle ports with numbers higher than 3 or 7. You can renumber the port if you have to.

    While there are many serial terminal programs out there, including Parallax's, I tend to still go back to Hyperterminal for barebones stuff. Not because it's got any bells or whistles (which it doesn't), but because it always seems to work and (it used to be that) everyone has it.

    Hyperterminal works fine under Windows 7. You just have to get the two files that it uses:
    HYPERTRM.EXE
    hypertrm.dll
    You can find these on an XP machine if you have one available. One file is probably in the Windows directory and the other is in one of the system subdirectories. Just copy both files to a single directory in the Windows 7 machine (they don't have to be in the Windows or system directories). It should run fine.
  • Indisputable AttitudeIndisputable Attitude Posts: 10
    edited 2010-12-09 11:59
    This was pretty easy with Windows 7. Everything (almost) worked the way it was supposed to. I didn't have to mess with any drivers as that company FTDI had it all taken care of with the automatic driver feature. Just plug the thing in, and wait a few seconds... poof!... A USB com 4 serial port showed up on the device manager page. Brilliant.

    I did have to mess around a little bit with the Hyperterminal software. I thought about using a download, but some of the websites might have viruses or what-not. So I went to my trusty old XP machine and stuck in a thumbdrive. Well, instead of moving a copy of Hyperterminal, it instead made a short-cut to the existing copy of Hyperterminal on the XP machine. Anybody know how to tell the XP software that I don't want a short-cut to Hyperterminal, but I want an actual copy of the software? I'm just curious about that, as I just downloaded a copy of Hyperterminal off some guy's website: http://www.jesswatts.com/it/free-hyperterminal-windows7

    Incidentally, it looks like a lot of Cisco users had the same kind of problem. Apparently a lot of Cisco devices use serial ports to get re-configured, and Windows 7 doesn't have that gem of a program Hyperterminal anymore.

    Anyway, thanks for the advice, and if anyone can answer the question about short-cuts vs. actual copying please inform.

    Thanks again.
  • schillschill Posts: 741
    edited 2010-12-09 13:41
    Indisputable Attitude wrote: »
    Anybody know how to tell the XP software that I don't want a short-cut to Hyperterminal, but I want an actual copy of the software?

    Right-click drag and select "copy" from the pop-up menu when you release ?
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