The new Parallax USB to Serial (RS-232) Adapter

Angela-Curti

Need to know if the new Parallax USB to Serial (RS-232) Adapter
is different to the old one.

It seems the size is different but what about electronic/firmware/drivers
differences ?

Old one means= a version that Parallax sold for many years (green color) :
https://solarbotics.com/product/21197/

Help please,

Chris Savage

Functionally these are the same. The newer version moves both ICs to the top of the board whereas before one chip was on the bottom side and one was on the top. The original used the FT232R chip, however the newer version uses the FT231X. So if you have really old drivers they may not detect the chipset properly.

VonSzarvas

Most recent Windows OS's seem to have the drivers automatically installed, but in-case you need some links.....:

Here's the FTDI webpage with drivers for most computer operating systems:
www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm

Included in the page (table about half-page down) is this setup file for Windows: www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/CDM/CDM21218_Setup.zip

Chris Savage

Yeah, the FT231X has been around for a while, so you'd have to have pretty old drivers to not recognize it.

Angela-Curti

Sorry , my nglish is not good.

You wrotte that I have to add old drivers to recognize the new
Parallax USB to Serial Adapter ?

( Im ausing win 8 )

VonSzarvas

Angela-Curti wrote: »

Sorry , my nglish is not good.

You wrotte that I have to add old drivers to recognize the new
Parallax USB to Serial Adapter ?

( Im ausing win 8 )

Hello Angela-Curti,

I think you mis-understood what Chris wrote.

I'd like to suggest you try the adapter, as there is a big chance it will work automatically.
And if not, then use the download link to download and install the driver.
The one I posted is compatible with Windows 8.

Here again for Windows: www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/CDM/CDM21218_Setup.zip

Download, unzip, then run the setup.exe
When finished, plug in the Parallax USB to Serial Adapter again- and it should automatically work.

Hope this helps.

Tracy Allen

More likely you'll need the VCP (virtual comm port) drivers, not the D2XX direct drivers. The VCP drivers make the port appear as an additional serial port available to the PC.

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

VonSzarvas

Good point Tracy.

The install file for Windows mentioned above actually includes both driver types. So installing that will still be a good solution.

Angela-Curti

Sorry ,

I am confused.
Is the new one full compatible with the old one ?

I usually use it to work with some PLCs and I am afraid that the new one will not work as well as the old one.

VonSzarvas

Fully compatible. 100%.

Angela-Curti

Thanks VonSzarvas

The_Master

VonSzarvas wrote: »

Most recent Windows OS's seem to have the drivers automatically installed

Do you mean the drivers are already installed, or do you mean recent version of windows have the capability or either getting the driver straight from the chip or automatically downloading without user intervention.

I ask because I recently read somewhere the opposite situation- that windows XP already had them, and that it was more recent versions of windows where you had to deal with installing drivers.

Publison

The_Master wrote: »

VonSzarvas wrote: »

Most recent Windows OS's seem to have the drivers automatically installed

Do you mean the drivers are already installed, or do you mean recent version of windows have the capability or either getting the driver straight from the chip or automatically downloading without user intervention.

I ask because I recently read somewhere the opposite situation- that windows XP already had them, and that it was more recent versions of windows where you had to deal with installing drivers.

When you are downloading any of Parallax's tools, you have the option to install the new FTDI drivers.