Adding serial communications requires specialized knowledge that might be outside an individual programmer's expertise. For years, developers have relied upon the power and reliability of the ActiveXperts Serial Port Component serial communications control.
All ActiveXperts licenses are are perpetual, which means that a license is paid only once and does not need to be renewed annually. It allows you to use the software for as long you continue to comply with the terms of the license agreement.
First year of Maintenance is included in purchase of a license. Maintenance entitles customers to use ActiveXperts's technical support services, and to receive all product upgrades, free of charge, during a specified Agreement duration.
How to use ActiveXperts Serial Port Component - Online samples - How to digitally sign an ActiveXperts software component - How to distribute an ActiveXperts software component - Release notes - Manual - Download - Serial Communication Tutorial
Adding serial communications capabilities to an application is never a simple matter. It requires specialized knowledge that might be outside an individual programmer's expertise. For years, VBScript, Visual Basic and Visual C++ developers have relied upon the power, flexibility and reliability of the ActiveXperts Serial Port Component serial communications control from ActiveXperts Software. And today, also .NET developers use this control.
ActiveXperts Serial Port Component is a COM component, that provides an easy-to-use scripting interface for serial, asynchronous communications through a serial port. ActiveXperts Serial Port Component can control modems, ISDN modems, USB serial devices and other devices and machines that have a serial interface.
ActiveXperts Serial Port Component is built on top of the Microsoft serial device drivers. It just uses these drivers. It neither replaces them, nor does it install any additional serial device drivers.
ActiveXperts Serial Port Component can be distributed easily to many PC's. Once you have purchased the licenses, you copy the AxSerial64.dll (and/or AxSerial32.dll) to the PCs and register the DLL on that PC.
To use ActiveXperts Serial Port Component in an ASP .NET, Visual Basic .NET or Visual C#. NET environment, the .NET Framework 2.0 or higher must be installed on the system. The .NET Framework is part of Windows 2003 server platforms and higher, and on Windows Vista workstation platforms and higher. For other Windows platforms, it's available as a separate installation. Please visit the Technology Information for the .NET Framework page to download the .NET Framework.
Internet Information Server (IIS) Setup installs the Visual Basic Script and Java Script engines.
To run ASP/ASP.NET pages on Windows Servers, IIS 6.x must be installed. IIS is an optional 'Role' in Windows Server platforms.
To run ASP .NET samples, .NET Framework 2.0 or higher must be installed.
First, make sure the ActiveXperts Serial Port component (AxSerial64.dll, or AxSerial32.dll) is registered on the machine. In case you didn't use the installation program, be sure you used the REGSVR32.EXE program to register to component.
After the declaration and creation of the object, you can use the object in your Visual Basic .NET code. Visual Basic samples are part of the product installation.
They can also be found online: ftp.activexperts-labs.com/samples/serial-port-component.
After the declaration and creation of the object, you can use the object in your Visual C# .NET code.
Visual C# .NET samples are part of the product installation.
They can also be found online: ftp.activexperts-labs.com/samples/serial-port-component.
ActiveXperts Serial Port Component can be used in Visual Basic 6.x or higher. In Visual Basic, go to the 'Project/References...' menu item and check the box next to ActiveXperts Serial Port Component Type Library. Now, you can declare and create ActiveXperts Serial Port Component objects.
After the declaration and creation of the object, you can use the object in your Visual Basic code.
Visual Basic samples are part of the product installation.
They can also be found online: ftp.activexperts-labs.com/samples/serial-port-component.
A license key is required to unlock this component after the trial period has expired. Assign the LicenseKey property every time a new instance of this component is created (see code below). Alternatively, the LicenseKey property can be set automatically. This requires the license key to be stored in the registry. For details, see Product Activation.
The result of a previous called method. Use it to check the result of your last method call. A zero indicates: success. Any non-zero value means an error.
The GetErrorDescription method provides the error description of an error code.
For a complete list of error codes, check out the following page: www.activexperts.com/support/errorcodes.
Baud rate at which the communications device operates. The default value is 0, which means that the baud rate setting is inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows.
You should use the UpdateCom method if you want to change the baudrate and the port is already opened.
This property can be one of the following values:
Number of databits in a byte. The default value is asDATABITS_DEFAULT, which means that the data bits setting is inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows. You cannot change the value when the port is already opened.
If StopBits is asSTOPBITS_1, one stop bit is used to indicate the end of data transmission.
If StopBits is asSTOPBITS_2, two stop bits are used to indicate the end of data transmission.
If StopBits is asSTOPBITS_15, the stop bit is transferred for 150% of the normal time used to transfer one bit.
You can configure Parity to be none, odd, even, mark, or space.
If Parity is asPARITY_DEFAULT, the parity setting is inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows.
If Parity is asPARITY_NONE (=none), parity checking is not performed and the parity bit is not transmitted.
If Parity is asPARITY_ODD (=odd), the number of mark bits (1's) in the data is counted, and the parity bit is asserted or unasserted to obtain an odd number of mark bits.
Use Hardware Flow Control. The default value is asFLOWCONTROL_DEFAULT, which means that the hardware flow control settings are inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows.
In most circumstances, it is not necessary to assign DTRFlowControl, RTSFlowControl, CTSFlowControl or DSRFlowControl individually. However, in some situations you want need to assign these properties individually.
Advanced Hardware Flow Control. Usually, the HardwareFlowControl property will suffice: it sets all four advanced hardware flow control flags ( DTRFlowControl, RTSFlowControl, CTSFlowControl, DSRFlowControl).
The default value is asFLOWCONTROL_DEFAULT, which means that the DTR flow control settings are inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows.
Advanced Hardware Flow Control. Usually, the HardwareFlowControl property will suffice: it sets all four advanced hardware flow control flags ( DTRFlowControl, RTSFlowControl, CTSFlowControl, DSRFlowControl).
The default value is asFLOWCONTROL_DEFAULT, which means that the RTS flow control settings are inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows.
Advanced Hardware Flow Control. Usually, the HardwareFlowControl property will suffice: it sets all four advanced hardware flow control flags ( DTRFlowControl, RTSFlowControl, CTSFlowControl, DSRFlowControl).
The default value is asFLOWCONTROL_DEFAULT, which means that the CTS flow control settings are inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows.
Advanced Hardware Flow Control. Usually, the HardwareFlowControl property will suffice: it sets all four advanced hardware flow control flags ( DTRFlowControl, RTSFlowControl, CTSFlowControl, DSRFlowControl).
The default value is asFLOWCONTROL_DEFAULT, which means that the DSR flow control settings are inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows.
Software flow control. You should use the UpdateCom method if you want to change the baudrate after you have opened the port.
The default value is asFLOWCONTROL_DEFAULT, which means that the software flow control settings are inherited from the Port/Device settings in the Control Panel of Windows. The other valid values are: asFLOWCONTROL_DISABLE and asFLOWCONTROL_ENABLE.
Specifies a delay (in milliseconds) used before WriteString actually starts writing the command string. This property was introduced to support slow devices that do not accept a few commands right after eachother. These devices need a small delay between commands, which can be accomplished by setting this 'PreCommandDelay' property.
Note that the property does NOT apply to the WriteBytes and WriteByte functions.
Default value: 0, indicating no delay between commands.
Specifies a delay (in milliseconds) used in WriteString between each character transmitted. This property was introduced to support slow devices that do not allow each character tranmitted right after eachother in command mode. These devices need a small delay between characters, which can be accomplished by setting this 'InterCharDelay' property.
Note that the property does NOT apply to the WriteBytes method.
Default value: 0, indicating no delay between characters.
The name of the device. Call the LastError method to see if the method was completed successfully.
The name of the device can be assigned to the Device property to open a Windows telephony device.