rsdoran, can you help?

[Steve Bailey]

Ron,

If you have time, could you help out a guy on the GE Fanuc forum? I remember your troubles last year when you got a new laptop with no serial port, only USB.

There is a guy using the handle 'greener' who started a thread in the 90-30 forum. He's been unable to get communications established between some existing PLCs and his laptop. After several exchanges, it appears that the primary issue is with a USB to serial converter. Were you ever able to get yours to talk to a 90-30?

The url for the GE Fanuc forum is:

http://gefanuc.bnsi.net/eforum/index.php

 

[rsdoran]

Steve sorry I missed this earlier, will setup my laptop today with the USB adapter and see what happens again, forgot now.

My biggest problem with GE was forgetting to assign an address for the comm.

 

[rsdoran]

My reply to the GE Forum

Steve asked me to respond because I have a Compaq laptop 1712US with WinXP that does not have a serial port at all so I use a Belkin USB to serial port adapter model F5U103.

I am using Versa Pro 2.02 and am at this time connected to a 90-30 via the Belkin adapter on com port 4. The 90-30 has firmware 5.03 (I found that you can still access older versions but they prefer you to upgrade the firmware). I have done the upgrade on 1 unit.

All I did was connect the cable and adapter then opened Versa Pro went to PLC and clicked connect, you select SNP serial and your com port..my adapter is set to use com4. It allowed me to Run or Stop the unit but didnt have Store/Load etc available. I then opened the program for that unit and everything was available.

I dont use DOS or LM90 on this system but I know that there are drivers that should be loaded in dos to allow the usb adapter to work..from the Belkin support site:

Q: Can I use it with DOS-based applications?
A: It can in Win98 and Win ME. In Win2000 and Win XP it is not supported. If you are running Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows ME you can do the following to enable DOS box support (this will only work if the DOS program runs in a DOS box within Windows): Right-click on the "My Computer" icon and select Properties. Click on the Device Manager tab. Click the "+" next to Ports [COM & LPT]. Click on the USB Comm Port (ComX) where X is the port number of the device. Click on the Properties button. Click on the "DOS Box" tab. Check the box on the option "Enable DOS Box 16550 Emulator." Choose a DOS name for the port from the listbox next to Logical Device Name (DOS Box). Many DOS applications will only work with COM1~COM4. If you don't want any of these, choose COMX. Click OK. You will then be asked for the USB Serial Installation disk. Insert the disk onto your floppy drive and click OK. If a dialog pops up starting that a file could not be found, make sure that the Copy files from: edit box contains the name of your floppy drive and click OK.

IF your system has built in serial ports then you may want to check there settings in bios etc and use them when possible.