... I have tried to link to it with several of our computers but have only managed it with an old PC running Win2K and having a 4 port RS232 board. It doesn't like the on board serial ports on any of our Dell portables or the old PC. I am running the Resol Service Centre light software to collect data. This is ok for now but the old PC eats electric so I would prefer to link it with a portable. Curiously I can get data into a portable via the serial port but the Resol SC light software refuses to work so I guess the data is corrupted in some way. Resol refuse to tell me the protocol for the data.
Has anyone else used the RS232C communication port of this controller?
Any suggestions?
I think it may be something to do with the power available using a portables serial port?
The problem with RS232 (or one of them) was the number of possible variants of the 'standard' - let alone the number of options within the standard...
For example that Resol item seems to use an RJ-45 connector, and although there is just one 'standard' pinout, there is another unreconised one that is very common!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rs232#Pinouts Power should not have anything to do with it.
Neither should voltage. RS232 specifies any voltage between 3 and 15 (+ and -), but 5 is pretty usual. The current draw (and hence power) is insignificant.
I presume that you are using the exact same unaltered unsupplemented specific cable that DOES work on the old PC. (There are way too many possible cable options - stick with exactly whatever has been demonstrated to work!) It is just possible that your laptop might have a 'different' physical port (for example, being a modem-like DCE rather than a terminal-like DTE), but I thought that was something that PCs standardised on pretty well. However, the default settings might well be rather different between OS's and different hardware.
I think that (assuming you cannot discover the default settings of the old PC's board) you should go back and ask Resol again.
There may be a linguistic difficulty.
Don't ask about the "data format". Explain that you want to run THEIR OWN software.
I'm assuming that you are using a connecting cable they supplied. Tell them that (if its true).
And then ask about the
"Communication Port Settings" that you require, because, right now, their software isn't working.
You are only asking (at least to start with) about appropriate preference settings for your computer, NOT the secret way that their controller works, or how data is represented -
just how to get their software working with their controller, on your machine. And that is almost certainly just matter of appropriate settings AND an appropriate cable.
After you have something working, then you might consider Wylieu's suggestion of exploring the controller by using different software.
