USB to serial OSX for plotter

Julian Burgess

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Nov 1, 2016, 11:36:34 PM11/1/16

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I'm trying to connect to a Roland DXY-1200 plotter. I bought this usb to serial cable but I'm not having any luck getting it to work. I'm using serial app, and I also tried installing this driver.

Any advice or things I could try out appreciated!

Kimball Johnson

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Nov 2, 2016, 2:32:33 AM11/2/16

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The cable is probably dogey, lots of the cheap ones are. Buy a legit FTDI cable.

On 2 Nov 2016, at 03:36, Julian Burgess <aube...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm trying to connect to a Roland DXY-1200 plotter. I bought this usb to serial cable but I'm not having any luck getting it to work. I'm using serial app, and I also tried installing this driver.

Any advice or things I could try out appreciated!

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JJ

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Nov 2, 2016, 5:39:43 AM11/2/16

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What operating system are you using and why that driver? Are you sure the cable uses a Prolific chipset?

There are four chipsets in common use and my personal experience is:

Prolific, eg. PL2303 - believed to be better now (I think I have a radio programming cable that uses one) but used to cause so many crashes and hangs I avoid like the plague, also because there are many fakes which won't work with the genuine driver. I'm guessing maybe that's what you've got and the CD contains a hacked driver for it but the Prolific download won't work.

FTDI, eg/ FT232xx - absolutely reliable but you won't get a legit one for under a tenner and fakes are bricked by recent drivers - my last resort as I don't like giving money to them since FTDIgate (google it)

Silicon Labs, eg. CP210x - good solid replacement for FTDI, found on many Arduino/ESP8266 devices but itself being replaced by...

CH340 - the new kid on the block since FTDIgate, cheap, ubiquitous and rock solid

I can't be 100% without finding a virgin system but I think the latest version of Windows 10 1607 has FTDI, CH340 and possibly Silicon Labs support out of the box.

If you're using Windows and it can't find a driver for your cable when you connect then Device Manager will show an unknown device with a yellow exclamation mark. Right click and drill into the details tab where you'll find the Hardware IDs. Googling those should tell you what chipset it's using, then go to the manufacturer and download the driver.

If all that fails then do as drrk suggests and buy a legit FTDI cable from their online store (they're based near Glasgow) or if money's more of an issue than time, buy a CH340 cable from AliExpress.

JJ

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Nov 2, 2016, 5:51:30 AM11/2/16

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Sorry, ignore my first question - I saw it in the heading as soon as I'd posted. If you don't know the chipset then Windows may help if you have access, as may modprobe under Terminal on a Mac. But the advice stands.

Patrick Joseph Shellard

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Nov 2, 2016, 8:30:28 AM11/2/16

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Could be something to do with the 9 pin to 25 pin converter? I think maybe they can be wired differently in terms of which pin corresponds to which.

I used this to connect to my HP7550A plotter:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00066HL50/ref=pe_385721_51767431_TE_dp_1

On Wed, Nov 2, 2016 at 9:51 AM, JJ <jj.so...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sorry, ignore my first question - I saw it in the heading as soon as I'd posted. If you don't know the chipset then Windows may help if you have access, as may modprobe under Terminal on a Mac. But the advice stands.

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Ben Barwise

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Nov 2, 2016, 8:44:26 AM11/2/16

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If all that fails then do as drrk suggests and buy a legit FTDI cable from their online store (they're based near Glasgow) or if money's more of an issue than time, buy a CH340 cable from AliExpress.

Try avoid CH340 and similar for OSX Yosemete and later, you have to do an annoying hack to make it work. https://tzapu.com/making-ch340-ch341-serial-adapters-work-under-el-capitan-os-x/

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Jim Hayes

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Nov 2, 2016, 10:04:45 AM11/2/16

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The listing says it's a CH340 chip - you'll need the right driver for it on OSX.

I *think* it's this one : http://www.wch.cn/download/CH341SER_MAC_ZIP.html

If you google it you'll find various others, but as I recall only the manufacturers one worked for me.

Julian Burgess

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Nov 27, 2016, 7:41:38 PM11/27/16

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Thanks for all the advice, but I'm afraid I'm still stuck. I think the OSX driver might be working ok, as it shows up ok in goSerial, which I've been using to try and get it work. However when I try and send a file, the power light flashes, which indicates and error, which at least indicates some type of communication is being attempted I guess. I have what I expect is a null modem/cross over serial cable which came with it and looks well used so I assume has worked in the past.

I brought it in to the Hackspace on Thursday and connected it via the 25 pin serial cable to Tesla, but couldn't get it work at all, even to get the error light so I wonder if perhaps I didn't have access to the port, although it looked ok as it was in the `dialout` group.