Re: Prolific Usb-to-serial Comm Port Version 3.3.3.114 Download
Raingarda Krzynowek
If you have a device that uses a USB to serial port connection, such as a barcode scanner, a GPS device, or a modem, you may need to install the Prolific USB to Serial Controller driver on your computer. This driver is the software that helps your operating system to communicate with USB Serial Port devices.
I have a program that communicates one-way (receive only) with some equipment (fire alarm control panels to be specific.) When I wrote the program, it was done on PC that doesn't have a native serial port, so I used a prolific serial->usb dongle. It worked, for the most part. I occasionally got a random 3F/? in the data when connected to one of the two types of FACPs, but I figured that was just the converter acting up, so I just stripped them from the output.
Then I ported it over to some work laptops, which are Dell's with native com ports. And now my data is garbled nonsense (mostly 3F/?.) Occasionally I will see the correct character, but it's mostly nonsense. Usually not even the right length of nonsense. Using the prolific converter, it "works" in that I get all the data I expect - with the addition of a 3F/? between every single character. Displayed just fine if I strip the bad characters, but that's a cheap hack when something else is clearly wrong.
The port settings are correct, 9600/8/1/None/XonXoff, as per manufacturer and personal experience. Both the prolific converter and the native serial port work just fine in other programs such as puTTY, procomm, or the manufacturer software. At one point I ran something called SerialMon to see what exactly it was sending, and I was getting the same garbled non-sense. I used that to test various port settings, to no avail.
I previously wrote nearly identical software in python and it worked fine on both the native com port on the laptop and the prolific converter. The fact that the python software worked and other terminal programs work makes me think it's something with .NET/C# that I need to fix on my end.
TL;DR: Serial program works, with some bad data, using a prolific 2303 dongle. Program does not work using native COM port. Other programs (putty, procomm, etc) work just fine using both. Similar Python program on same laptop works fine with prolific and native com port. Tried other port settings, tried port monitoring program. Send help.
Using the example provided with the driver for the function generator, I have remote control working via GPIB, but I cannot get RS232 control to work. I would just work with GPIB control, but the MKS 647B does not have a GPIB port so I have to use RS232 communication.
NOTICE: As of June 1, 2023, RadonAway will no longer provide free phone or remote desktop support for the legacy RadStar USB adapters. Microsoft Windows updates have caused the legacy adapter to require frequent driver updates in order to communicate correctly with the RadStar RS300 and RS800. We strongly urge you to purchase the current usb cable adapter kit from RadonAway (P/N 28262). Click here to purchase. Customers who do not purchase the new cable can continue to modify the cable driver themselves using the instructions below, however, our RadStar Support team will stop proving free phone and remote desktop support for this issue as of June 1, 2023.
As many people, you probably upgrade directly from W7 to W10, and sure, don't know that this problem was already present with W8. It's a shame from Prolific to not support this devices, because they are still used (my LED badges are less than a year old, and use EOL PL-2303 HX). Prolific's guys are fun when they said : "Prolific recommends to usePL-2303HXD (HX Rev D) or PL2303TA chip." . Hey, but I can't do that myself !!!
If portions of the text are unreadable but appear to be properly formatted, themost likely culprit is a character encoding mismatch in the terminal. Adding the-U parameter to the screen command line arguments forces it to use UTF-8for character encoding:
NSS communicates to the LED controller chip using the Prolific USB to COM port adapter. This should setup automatically using a built in Windows driver. Sometimes during a BIOS update, the Prolific USB to COM port adapter can disappear. Loading optimized defaults by pressing F9 in BIOS settings can reset it.
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