[time-nuts] TBOLT communication

buehl buehl at superlink.net
Wed Sep 24 09:02:33 EDT 2008


Nevil:

In my business we use/ supply serial to parallel converters for 
programming our product originally designed for serial.  We ran into 
most of the problems you have described.  The hanging appears to be a 
windows problem (we use XL pro mostly).  Ours uses the Prolific 
converter and driver.

We found that there are signal voltage level problems associated with 
the use of the USB as power source.
This appears to be much worse with laptops than with desktop 
computers.  We can take the same 'setup' and move it from a 
non-functioning laptop connection, and make it work well on a 
desktop.  Seems that for power savings the laptop makers are reducing 
current levels and voltage levels to the lowest values possible; thus 
not enough level out of the converter.

An S-P converter with its own power supply should help if it is 
designed to up-convert the serial levels to RS 232 standards.

One of the things we did to help this was to reduce the required 
serial levels in our product.  Of course you cannot change the 
tunderbolt parameters.

Since our cable must be computer powered, one of the things I have 
wanted to try (never enough time) is shift the serial signal up above 
ground by a small amount.  Thought was to use a small button cell in 
the serial output line.
Thus instead of the serial signal going from 0 to 3.5V, it would go 
from 1 to 4.5V or similar.  My thought is that serial device logic 
does not actually require 0V for low logic state, and the extra volt 
on the high side would improve reliability of HI logic state.

If you want to contact me off-line:   buehl  at   superlink.net

Tom Buehl





At 06:58 PM 9/24/2008 +1000, you wrote:
>Hi,
>I have just spent a week or two trying to talk to a Trimble Thunderbolt.
>I have a laptop running VISTA, about which there is little to say.
>The laptop has no serial ports, but I have some USB/Serial converters
>that successfully run
>my HP 3815A and a Samsung GCRU/D, and also communicate with my HOBO
>loggers.
>The USB/Serial converters are a little difficult to use, sometimes
>hanging, necessitating
>unplugging and plugging back in. They get assigned to various Port
>numbers but tend to keep
>the same number from day to day. The ports can be configured in the
>management function.
>However the TBOLT refuses to talk to the converter, to the extent
>that I thought that I must have
>damaged the TBOLT.
>Today, as a last resort, I remembered an old PC, dragged it out and
>stoked it up, and to my delight
>the TBOLT monitoring program ran without difficulty under Windows
>2000 with a conventional serial port.
>Now I vaguely remember talk about RS232 communications and the need
>for pull up or down
>resistors and supplies, but searching the archives I could find
>nothing relevant.
>Can anyone tell me how I could run the TBOLT off a USB/Serial converter?
>cheers, Neville Michie
>
>_______________________________________________
>time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
>To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>and follow the instructions there.




More information about the time-nuts mailing list