What’s the deal with these things? It seems like no matter how hard I try, I can never get one to actually work with the device that i’m using. I’ve successfully managed to make it work with an old serial swipe card reader, but that’s about it!
It also seems like completely uninstalling the Windows drivers is an impossibility. I have three different USB to Serial adapters, all made by different vendors, all using the same Prolific PL2303 chipset. The installed drivers work for ONE of them. No amount of deleting ghosted devices or clearing USB IDs out of the registry can make the other two work correctly. I’ve even tried forcing them onto the older versions of the drivers with no luck. It’s just disaster after disaster with these things, yet it seems like everyone is using this same chip set.
Yet another piece of terrible driver software accompanied by bad hardware. Any recommendations for a good USB to Serial adapter would certainly be appreciated! If anyone is into the aquarium scene and has used one with an Aquatronica controller, that would be even more helpful. Sad irony, Aquatronica sells a PL2303 based USB to Serial adapter and i’d say success rates are abysmal. I see LOTS of people complaining about them not working. At least i’m not alone!
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#1 by Tony on July 4, 2009 - 5:20 pm
PL2303 chipset is crap, chinese crap…. mine work once with no load (no devices connected) and just after i connected with one device (my multimeter with no connection to any circuit)… it went bananas and never worked again, it’s a short circuit… windows says it exceed the port current capacity and switches the port off… (at least good protection there… thanks windows)
#2 by Francois-Xavier on February 25, 2010 - 6:12 am
Hi
I have try Pl2303 in cable version and it doesn’t work with aquatronica.
Then i switch to ftdi controller not in cable but the “plate” version that you can solder.
http://cgi.ebay.com/FTDI-USB-to-serial-UART-interface-Board-for-AVR-PIC_W0QQitemZ160403546054QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2558cbdfc6#ht_2216wt_941
I solved the problem by opening the the rs232 interface from aquatronica and solder directly the ftdi USB module to the max 242 chip :
RX from ftdi to pin 12 of max 242 and tx from ftdi to pin 12 of max 242 gnd to gnd (pin number can be found on the web in max 242 datasheet)
Then i follow the aquatronica procedure to install driver
http://www.aquatronica.it/pdf_download/software/DriversACQ222EN.pdf