Hi.

A few weeks back,my notebook took a turn for the worst, have replace it know, only small problem, its got no serial port...

does any have experience with a usb to serial converter that works, with the following.

MS , other ecu... programmer board etc..

i know some usb converters don,t work very well with some older type serial port systems...

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Black UK 96 205 shed with heater full on telemetry.

project six million dollar 185, faster, stronger, lighter than before.

What laptop is it?

Does the manafacturer sell a docking station or a port expander?

In my experience they work much better than a 3rd party port adapter.

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JDM ST205 (286bhp and 281lb/ft)
JDM ST202 (Finally sold )
1982 Pontiac Trans Am 5.7L V8 (See my website)

I have a USB to Serial converter for my laptop.

I use it for working on Switches, Routers, Firewalls & VTY terminal sessions (Also use it for working on my Clifford Alarm) I have had no problems what so ever other then the £45 it cost to buy (Not cheap for such a simple device).

Mine works by linking the USB port to the system default serial port (COM1/2).
If you buy one & it comes up as COM3 or above, you have one that creates a virtual serial port over USB, which is where I think you will get the problems with the emulation engine not accessing some VTY sessions (I.E ECU programs & Clifford alarms etc).

Docking station is a good idea if you work in 1 or 2 fixed places but not if you have to move around & be flexible (say mapping an ECU while driving down the road)

Jon, good news for you I hope.....I have a USB only laptop which I have managed to interface with my M4 MoTeC ECU. As you know the M4 is a DOS based system so I had to get the full-screen DOS emulator working on my Windows XP laptop. Anyway, after a bit of trial and error all is working fine now.

The first USB to serial converter I purchased didn't work. I think it was a driver problem as it seemed to think all I wanted to do was play CD's The solution was found at Maplins and it appears to work like Krude has described. With the MoTeC you have to remember to synchronise the COM port settings in the DOS configuration with the laptop COM port settings. Before I synchronised the ports I was getting signals from the ECU moving the curser at random over the screen. It's definitely not Plug & Play !

If you are interested I can dig out the details of my USB to serial converter when I get home tonight.

Cheers,

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Don
GT4DC Chairman
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205WRC JDM 269bhp @ 0.9bar
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four Special GT 590bhp @ 1.8bar
1989 Van Diemen RF88/89 Formula Ford 1600
2008 Nissan Patrol GU 3.0L ZD30DDTi 154bhp

I've got an old Toshiba laptop that you can have, its got a serial interface, its old and runs windows 98 and the battery's knackered, but it'll happily run DOS apps for you.

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ST205




"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and the earth brought forth grass and the Rastafarians smoked it."

some light....hopefully then Steve…

Kude I have bought a usb to rs232, gives com4, lm1 starts to download log, then stops. No real time stats, same for the MS no joy, same goes for the dl1 unit, my programmer, and other stuff fails to work properly too.. Nightmare.

I have found a pcmcia card for 2 com ports, on CPC, maybe worth giving this a go, least it would have real IRQ’s , would this be the way..

Getting fed up with it, its been 2 weeks, without working laptop, want to get back to some fuel controlled driving..

Thanks for the offer robbiemcvee, little late bought a hi –grade piece of *%$£”!, but cheap, know why now…no… its not that bad. What spec & money you looking at, if the pcmcia card option does not work I may require, battery thing is hassle, but I can use it on the inverter, as the old ibm would not run longer than ½ hr on the battery without giving up..

Candyman it’s a hi grade c5515 or something..


Came with cough xp home…cough , ran the live update, no problem, install some tcp management tools, used another xp home cd with sp2 , now getting sp2 bb code, 3 sorts in total.

Wish I checked about the serial port thingy 1st..

Cheers for the input guys.

Jon.

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Black UK 96 205 shed with heater full on telemetry.

project six million dollar 185, faster, stronger, lighter than before.

are you using XP or XP pro?

When you say bb code whatchu mean?

its free mate - take it away!

It runs on 240v fig8 connector, not sure but you may be able to buy a battery for it if you need one. it is quite old though.

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ST205




"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and the earth brought forth grass and the Rastafarians smoked it."

Bettcha E-bay would have a battery, it's truely amazing what stuff you can get from there!

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Loosey
Loosey@gt4dc.co.uk
Storm Blue JDM ST205
Super White JDM ST205
http://www.gtfours.co.uk

Some people are like a Slinky .. Not really good for anything, but they make you smile when you shove them down the stairs!

Hi.

The usb to rs232 is a total load of rubbish, i have played around with it , like a rubics cube, have now advance to , receiving data for a small period of time, then it stops..

In short I have now had it, with it..

robbiemcvee where about is you 20.,, as i may take you up..

cpc sell a pcmcia 2 port rs232, will receive it Tuesday,” hopefully”, if this fails, and your offer still stands i would gladly take you up on your kind offer.

Hi loosey, its no problem about the battery, I learnt my lesson using the old IBM &
MS on auto tune you need the pc running. Well after 1/2 hr of driving around doing updates, just when it started to look good on the AR, the laptop switch off, lost the last auto tune bin file, since then i have installed a power inverter, a few other things run from it..one being a variable power supply for fuel pump supply., which has been quite handy at times..


cheers for all the help..

jon

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Black UK 96 205 shed with heater full on telemetry.

project six million dollar 185, faster, stronger, lighter than before.

Im in Winnersh on Tuesday this week - the rest of the week im in St Ives. I can leave it at the office or with a friend of mine in Winnersh if you want to pick it up?
Don't expect too much from it - i just used it for data transfers from my dive computer

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ST205




"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and the earth brought forth grass and the Rastafarians smoked it."