USB to Serial Adapter

[Root Moose]

A buddy of mine is having some difficulties with using a USB<->Serial adapter in an automotive environment. Sometimes it just stops working. He's casting about currently for an old clunker laptop with a built in serial port but I don't think that is the right way to go.

I've heard that some brands of adapters are better than others.

What have you guys had good luck with?

 

[obscurotron]

Weird. I have an older Keyspan USB-Serial adapter that I've used on Thinkpads and various Apple laptops and I've never had it flake out on me in the car. The Keyspan I've got is around 4 or 5 years old and Just Works.

I like the brand.

 

[cnynrat]

I have a Sewell USB/serial adaptor that I mainly use to connect a laptop to our various ham radios for programming. It's worked well for me.

 

[gjackson]

2x on the Keyspan. Used all the way through Africa in 2004 and still working now. Been very solid.

cheers

 

[lugal]

x3 on the Keyspan adapters. I've used a number of them at work and in the field over the last decade, and the only problem I ever have is my co-workers pinching/losing them.

 

[ShoxX]

been using a delorme adapter for 7+ years with no problems.

 

[tremors834]

There are 2 main chipsets used for various usb-serial converters. Prolific and FTDI. Many people have had problems with the converters that uses the Prolific chip drivers, myself included. From what I understand is that Prolific leaves it up to the converter manufacturers to offer support where as FTDI will deal with the end user. The prolific drivers are many, and none ever seem to work for most.
Best best would be to find a converter with the FTDI chipset, or as I have found- the driver used for the rigblaster amatuer radio interface seems to work for all the prolific chipset converters that I've dealt with.
That PPROLIFIC CHIP SET driver can be found here (it wont work for FTDI Chipsets)-
http://www.westmountainradio.com/content.php?page=supportplu
scroll down to the usb to serial adapter installation for the driver download.
Good Luck

 

[theksmith]

There are 2 main chipsets used for various usb-serial converters. Prolific and FTDI. Many people have had problems with the converters that uses the Prolific chip drivers, myself included. From what I understand is that Prolific leaves it up to the converter manufacturers to offer support where as FTDI will deal with the end user. The prolific drivers are many, and none ever seem to work for most.
Best best would be to find a converter with the FTDI chipset, or as I have found- the driver used for the rigblaster amatuer radio interface seems to work for all the prolific chipset converters that I've dealt with.
That PPROLIFIC CHIP SET driver can be found here (it wont work for FTDI Chipsets)-
http://www.westmountainradio.com/content.php?page=supportplu
scroll down to the usb to serial adapter installation for the driver download.
Good Luck

i'll second that if he's using prolific based chip that it can be finicky, especially with win 7 or vista...

i was having problems with my Globalsat USB GPS that uses the prolific chip and windows 7 and vista. i had been updating drivers offered by prolific every time new ones came out to no avail. then finally a couple months ago the newest release suddenly fixed everything.

also, it may seem too basic to question, but is he sure there's not just a loose connection or frayed internal wire that's occasionally causing the issue?

also you might look at XPORT, it's free and can show you the status of the GPS msgs coming in so you can see if it's just the application that he's using that's dying, or if the entire stream is stopping... it also has an option to "clean up" the incoming data stream in case he's got something weird going on and corrupt msgs are killing his app

 

[762X39]

A buddy of mine is having some difficulties with using a USB<->Serial adapter in an automotive environment. Sometimes it just stops working. He's casting about currently for an old clunker laptop with a built in serial port but I don't think that is the right way to go.

At work, all our techs have new or newish laptops with serial ports.You can still get them and it is a much better way to gf course none of of our laptops are what you would call low end but having a real serial port if you need it is the way to go.I am not interested in spending even 5 minutes of my time troubleshooting connection problems when I could be using the application. My laptop is a semi rugged Toughbook, and the guy next to me has a new Fugitsu.All of our laptops were under $2100 cdn.

 

[Token]

I have to use these adapters regularly in my work (field programming fire and access control panels).. I've got about 4 or five different adapters I use depending on the panel I'm working on. One that works here, won't work there kinda thing..

The one that works in most places though is a Belkin F5U409TTCU
http://www.buy.com/prod/belkin-usb-...-9-serial-type-a-usb/q/loc/101/208464270.html

 

[R_Lefebvre]

We've had big problems getting serial adapters to work for our industrial applications. We basically gave up and just buy laptops with a real serial port. They can still be found. I've got a Dell Latitude E5500, nothing special.

That being said, we have had some luck with IOGear adapters.

 

[762X39]

I've got about 4 or five different adapters I use depending on the panel I'm working on. One that works here, won't work there kinda thing..

The above is exactly why our techs just get laptops with a real serial port in them.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

That has largely been our experience as well. Some work for some things, but not others.