Pcmcia Serial Adapters Work With Datalogit ?

[discopotato03]

A friend recently bought a Ritmo branded PCMCIA to dual Serial port adapter (CC-M66) and I'm going to try to get it to work with XP to run Datalogit .

Struggling with the drivers ATM but thats mainly because I'm not a computer geek . If its a goer it will unchain me from laptops with serial ports and may lead to a way to run Datalogit from Windows 7 .

Has this been done before successfully ?

Cheers A .

[JonnoHR31]

Never used one of those but i've used a couple of generic adapters aswell as the ones supplied with datalogit. Out of the 2 datalogit ones 1 was toast, the other worked perfectly and out of the 2 cheapies one works perfectly and the other works sometimes, drops in and out. That was with windows XP though. Aslong as you can get the drivers to work properly it should be fine.

[Duncan]

sorry, I don't know about the ritmo adapter....

but I can report i am happily running Datalogit on Win7 64 bit on a brand new HP Probook 6560b which I was surprised to find sitting in a shop with an old fashioned serial port on the back!

[GTSBoy]

PCMCIA is not really a long term help. Laptops don't really come with those slots anymore either. Express Card maybe.... The USB to serial ones are fine. There's 2 main chipset types out there. One tends to be great, the other not so great. If you try one and it works, life's good. If you try one and you can't get it to go, find out what chipset is in it and then get a different adaptor with the other chipset.

[DVS JEZ]

Cant beat the reliabilty of the serial port.

[discopotato03]

Yes thats true , just trying my luck with someone elses gadget . This adapter just happens to be PCMCIA though I'd look for cardbus if buying myself . Will also search for Express card Serial adapters if such a thing exists .

Interesing about running Datalogit from 64 bit Win 7 , that would free up laptop choices for me heaps .

That aside I got my computer person friend to get the gadgets drivers in but forgot to take the serial cable with me .

Always something , cheers A .

[discopotato03]

Hi Duncan , I looked into those HP 6560bs and they have the serial port standard . I was not aware that any current laptop had them but it is a bonus . Which one did you get and how do you find it overall . Can you PM me on where it came from and what the approximate damage was please .

Cheers and thanks , Adrian .

[discopotato03]

More info would be good about running Datalogit from 64 bit Win 7 .

A .

[Duncan]

Hi mate, I picked up the laptop at ht, about 1500 http://www.ht.com.au/list.hts?keyword=6560b.

It's not cheap (although not horribly expensive either), I travel a lot and learned years ago to buy something that is a bit better built. This one seems pretty good.

The fact it had a serial port is what sealed it for me....so much easier dealing with 80s car technology if you have a serial port on board.

Re running on windows 7 64bit, it just would not work. I installed it a couple of times and it kept complaining about not being able to find TABCTL32.OCX

I was running it on a 32bit virtual session in 64bit windows for a while, until I tried running it as "Administrator". Since I changed that setting it has worked fine on win 64bit. Right click on FC-Edit.exe, go to the Compatibility tab, and turn on the Run as Administrator check box at the bottom of the screen.

[The Dan]

Whats wrong with an RS232 - USB adaptor?

That's what we use. Never had a problem

[DVS JEZ]

Elite, even the ones they supply die eventually and leave u stuck. What brand do u guys use? Dataligit seems to be pedantic on which usb adaptor it will use

[discopotato03]

Thanks Duncan , I've been looking into the Core i7 version of the HP Pro book 6560r and I've seen it going in the the mid 1300s which sounds alright .

It would kill several birds with the one stone because I'd like something more modern than this old Dell D630 Core 2 duo and a real RS232 port would be a huge bonus . It (D630) dual boots 7 and XP and the latter is only there for Datalogit so running it from 32 or preferably 64 bit 7 would simplify things .

Thanks again , cheers Adrian .

Edited April 8, 2012 by discopotato03

[discopotato03]

Hi Duncan , I tried what you said and it comes up with " Component 'COMDLG32.OCX' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid" .

Any idea where to go from here ?

Cheers Adrian .

[Duncan]

Maybe....I stuffed around and tried a million things to get this to work - but here is what I think did the trick.

Create a shortcut to FC-Edit.exe (or just use the start menu one)

Right click and choose Properties

Choose the Compatibility Tab

Select "Run this program as an administrator"

Click OK.

Depending on your UAV settings, you may get a windows warning every time you start the program....but at least it works.

NFI why, but maybe there are smarter PC people on here that can explain it.

[MBS206]

Duncan, I'm amused that HP is putting serial ports in again. For a quite a while Toshiba have een the only ones putting a serial port in one of their models, and that is because most electrical engineers require them.

Secondly, ive never had issues with USB to RS232 assorted working with ECUs. Although my current car has an ECU waiting for it that runs a USB connection natively

[Moodles2]

comdlg32.ocx is related to visual basic, check this: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/comdlg32.htm

[discopotato03]

Well after lots of stuffing around by a more computer literate friend I have FC Datalogit running on both laptops and in Win 7 , one 32 and the other 64 bit OSs .

My friend screwed around heaps with VB runtime files and all sorts of OCX crap and didn't have anything nice to say about the people who developed the software .

He doesn't know yet but I think the problems were trying to transfer the FC Edit from one computer to another rather than installing from the original CD . Anyway I got home and installed from CD - and it just worked ...

I noted that the disc has some VB5 files on it but I'll get him to look at these at a later stage .

I assume that if the software runs actually linking to the black box should be no issue .

Anyhow fingers crossed I have a modern laptop running Win7x64 and can still stuff around reliably with EMS software and a real serial port . It doesn't involve running XP in a separate partition , probably couldn't with a SATA drive anyway , or virtual XP like others have done at times .

Cheers A .