I need a usb3 to rs232 adapter that WORKS RIGHT

On 8/9/19 4:38 PM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2019-08-09 5:51 p.m., T wrote:
On 8/8/19 11:53 AM, T wrote:
Hi All,

I have a customer with a Mac and a w10 laptop and a CNC machine
with an RS232 (only) interface.Â* He wants to be able to send
text files to the CNC machine.Â* The Mac has USB3 and Thunderbolt
interfaces on the back.Â* The W10 laptop has usb3 ports.

Now I could go the the various accessories sites and get
such an adapter, but they are typically trash and don't
work for beans.Â* The customer did state this was his
experience.Â* (Mine too.)

Any one know of a USB3 to RS232 adapter THAT ACTUALLY
WORKS RIGHT?

Many thanks,

-T

Hi All,

Thank you all for the wonderful responses!

I am going to try a star tech

https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapt...ble~ICUSB2321F


as it has a FTDI chipset.Â* And FTDI chipsets also get recommended
over at the Apple support forum (as well as here).

By the way, you guys realize that admitting you know RS232
means you are all old farts?Â* Under 50 has no idea what you are
talking about.Â* It takes a lot of years to become a proper
old fart.Â* What me???Â* An old fart too???Â* I am not!!!Â* I am
a curmudgeon.Â* Still have too may teeth to be a proper
old fart!Â* (That is a changing.)

-T

Why am I writing you guys again?Â* YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
Is Sparky still in the Navy?Â* Is Teddy still president?
I hate when this happens.Â* I have a lawn?




This may help you with my vintage, Many Many moons ago I had to build an
rs232 to 20 milliamp current loop adapter cable to run an RO35 teletype
printer.

Rene


Awesome!

The first communications cables I EVER ran was RS232 in the Air Force.

T wrote:
On 8/8/19 11:53 AM, T wrote:
Hi All,

I have a customer with a Mac and a w10 laptop and a CNC machine
with an RS232 (only) interface. He wants to be able to send
text files to the CNC machine. The Mac has USB3 and Thunderbolt
interfaces on the back. The W10 laptop has usb3 ports.

Now I could go the the various accessories sites and get
such an adapter, but they are typically trash and don't
work for beans. The customer did state this was his
experience. (Mine too.)

Any one know of a USB3 to RS232 adapter THAT ACTUALLY
WORKS RIGHT?

Many thanks,

-T

Hi All,

Thank you all for the wonderful responses!

I am going to try a star tech

https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapt...ble~ICUSB2321F


as it has a FTDI chipset. And FTDI chipsets also get recommended
over at the Apple support forum (as well as here).

By the way, you guys realize that admitting you know RS232
means you are all old farts? Under 50 has no idea what you are
talking about. It takes a lot of years to become a proper
old fart. What me??? An old fart too??? I am not!!! I am
a curmudgeon. Still have too may teeth to be a proper
old fart! (That is a changing.)

-T

One with lights is highly recommended: pwr, tx & rx at a minimum.
Either that or put a serial tester with lights in the loop.

Most scada equipment is RS-232.
Refineries, pipelines, industrial equipment... all run on RS-232
or some variant like 422/485. Some newer devices also have
usb 2 but few people trust that since a com failure sometimes means
that things explode and people die.

On 8/9/19 5:19 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
SomeÂ*newerÂ*devicesÂ*alsoÂ*have
usbÂ*2Â*butÂ*fewÂ*peopleÂ*trustÂ*thatÂ*sinceÂ*aÂ*c omÂ*failureÂ*sometimesÂ*means
thatÂ*thingsÂ*explodeÂ*andÂ*peopleÂ*die.

RS232 would be a ton more reliable, although a ton more
difficult to set up.

On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 08:54:54 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 08/08/2019 23.04, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
T wrote:

...


http://www.usconverters.com/usb-serial-adapter-xs880

Mine is about is about 10 years old and has been with me from
Mexico to the Arctic Circle and on 4 laptops.
The data and power lights are a necessity.
It is USB2 though.* None of our monitoring equipment uses USB3x.
Don't know why anyone would need USB3 for equipment.


It comes from the laptop being good and modern, thus not having USB2 ;-p

Backward compatible, all the way to plain USB.

On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 10:20:30 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 09/08/2019 09.30, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 08:53:14 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 08/08/2019 23.13, Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 08 Aug 2019 16:08:33 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Frank Slootweg
wrote:

I have a customer with a Mac and a w10 laptop and a CNC machine
with an RS232 (only) interface. He wants to be able to send
text files to the CNC machine. The Mac has USB3 and Thunderbolt
interfaces on the back. The W10 laptop has usb3 ports.

Now I could go the the various accessories sites and get
such an adapter, but they are typically trash and don't
work for beans. The customer did state this was his
experience. (Mine too.)

Any one know of a USB3 to RS232 adapter THAT ACTUALLY
WORKS RIGHT?

Very likely the problem is not that the adapter does not work, but
that such adapters are normally intended to drive peripherals such as
printers, not CNC machines.

the usb-serial adapters i've used provide a standard rs232 port, which
i used to talk to the console ports on old upses, a managed switch and
a gps, among other devices.

+1

My team and I use usb-serial adapters every day to administer
Enterprise-grade networking equipment via their Console ports. The brand
of the adapter doesn't seem to matter at all. They all just work. I've
never picked one up that didn't work. It's just a standard rs232 port.
There's no special protocol that the adapter itself needs to understand
or support.


That's low speed use, hardly over 9600.

It's 19200 bps, to be exact. What's your point? Did someone add a
requirement for any specific speed to this discussion? The OP is still
quoted above, so it's easy to see that no speed requirements were
provided. The question was, do these adapters work? The answer is yes,
they do.


The point is you have not ascertained those USB-RS232 converters work at
high speed (115000).

The ones I've used DO absolutely work up to that speed. My best
scanners use 56K, and a few other things are faster.

On Sat, 10 Aug 2019 11:01:40 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 10:22:44 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 10:22:08 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 09/08/2019 09.37, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 08:44:50 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 09/08/2019 03.32, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:00:56 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Thu, 08 Aug 2019 16:26:28 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

A CNC machine is essentially a plotter. You're sending a series of
commands that ends with a command to execute. After that, the machine
goes to work. There's no real time control, at least not that I've ever
seen. Once executed, the machine goes to work and lets you know when it
has finished. It's not like you're sitting there, trying to guide it
with a joystick.

That's not always the case.

What's not always the case?

It would help to know what the machine is
and whether the problem is the downloading of a control program or the
direct control of the machine.

If it's a CNC machine, as it was described up thread, there is no
'direct control'. Is there a CNC machine that isn't controlled by a
computer? If so, would it still be considered to be CNC?

It depends if it is programmed by the computer, then the machine runs
the program on its own, like a plotter would do, or if its directly
controlled by the computer.

Either way, there is no 'direct control'. The distinction you're making
is the difference between sending all of the movement commands before
the program is executed or whether the commands are sent and executed
one at a time. Are we still talking about CNC machines or has the
discussion morphed?


The point is that direct control of a CNC machine over USB-RS232
converter _might_ be problematic.

There is no 'direct control', so there is no problem.

There is, on the cheapest machine. They can't do anything without
specific individual instructions being fed down the line (one at a
time) from an attached computer.

Right, that's what I've been saying. There is no direct control.
Everything is done via the instructions that you mentioned, whether they
are sent one at a time or in a group. Again, no direct control.

On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 22:05:43 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Sat, 10 Aug 2019 11:01:40 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 10:22:44 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 10:22:08 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 09/08/2019 09.37, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 08:44:50 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 09/08/2019 03.32, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:00:56 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Thu, 08 Aug 2019 16:26:28 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

A CNC machine is essentially a plotter. You're sending a series of
commands that ends with a command to execute. After that, the machine
goes to work. There's no real time control, at least not that I've ever
seen. Once executed, the machine goes to work and lets you know when it
has finished. It's not like you're sitting there, trying to guide it
with a joystick.

That's not always the case.

What's not always the case?

It would help to know what the machine is
and whether the problem is the downloading of a control program or the
direct control of the machine.

If it's a CNC machine, as it was described up thread, there is no
'direct control'. Is there a CNC machine that isn't controlled by a
computer? If so, would it still be considered to be CNC?

It depends if it is programmed by the computer, then the machine runs
the program on its own, like a plotter would do, or if its directly
controlled by the computer.

Either way, there is no 'direct control'. The distinction you're making
is the difference between sending all of the movement commands before
the program is executed or whether the commands are sent and executed
one at a time. Are we still talking about CNC machines or has the
discussion morphed?


The point is that direct control of a CNC machine over USB-RS232
converter _might_ be problematic.

There is no 'direct control', so there is no problem.

There is, on the cheapest machine. They can't do anything without
specific individual instructions being fed down the line (one at a
time) from an attached computer.

Right, that's what I've been saying. There is no direct control.
Everything is done via the instructions that you mentioned, whether they
are sent one at a time or in a group. Again, no direct control.

Do you remember my original question?

"That's not always the case. It would help to know what the machine
is and whether the problem is the downloading of a control program
or the direct control of the machine."


There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

Eric Stevens

On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 19:15:29 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

Eric Stevens

and a third class who doesn't know what a sig delimiter is.

Thats another problem.


There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

Eric Stevens

On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 15:54:03 -0700, T wrote:

On 8/8/19 5:00 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
That's not always the case. It would help to know what the machine is
and whether the problem is the downloading of a control program or the
direct control of the machine.

This one only accesses the file system on the CNC machine.
You can basically only upload and download text files.

Right! So its not a toy machine.

And the text file is G code or similar?

Doesn't matter, all you are doing is downloading ASCII text. That
shouldn't be too difficult to sort out.
--


There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

Eric Stevens

On Sat, 10 Aug 2019 15:49:26 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 22:05:43 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Sat, 10 Aug 2019 11:01:40 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 10:22:44 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 10:22:08 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 09/08/2019 09.37, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 08:44:50 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
wrote:

On 09/08/2019 03.32, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:00:56 +1200, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Thu, 08 Aug 2019 16:26:28 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

A CNC machine is essentially a plotter. You're sending a series of
commands that ends with a command to execute. After that, the machine
goes to work. There's no real time control, at least not that I've ever
seen. Once executed, the machine goes to work and lets you know when it
has finished. It's not like you're sitting there, trying to guide it
with a joystick.

That's not always the case.

What's not always the case?

It would help to know what the machine is
and whether the problem is the downloading of a control program or the
direct control of the machine.

If it's a CNC machine, as it was described up thread, there is no
'direct control'. Is there a CNC machine that isn't controlled by a
computer? If so, would it still be considered to be CNC?

It depends if it is programmed by the computer, then the machine runs
the program on its own, like a plotter would do, or if its directly
controlled by the computer.

Either way, there is no 'direct control'. The distinction you're making
is the difference between sending all of the movement commands before
the program is executed or whether the commands are sent and executed
one at a time. Are we still talking about CNC machines or has the
discussion morphed?


The point is that direct control of a CNC machine over USB-RS232
converter _might_ be problematic.

There is no 'direct control', so there is no problem.

There is, on the cheapest machine. They can't do anything without
specific individual instructions being fed down the line (one at a
time) from an attached computer.

Right, that's what I've been saying. There is no direct control.
Everything is done via the instructions that you mentioned, whether they
are sent one at a time or in a group. Again, no direct control.

Do you remember my original question?

"That's not always the case. It would help to know what the machine
is and whether the problem is the downloading of a control program
or the direct control of the machine."

Yes, I recognize that text. It's all been hashed out, though. It's a CNC
machine, so by definition there is no 'direct control' of the machine.
What you have are a set of instructions that need to be sent to the
machine for execution, either one at a time (unusual) or in a batch
(much more common). I'm not sure why you want to revisit that, though.

There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

I see that you're struggling to create a proper sig delimiter. It's
'dash dash space newline'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signat...senet_postings

On 8/9/19 8:57 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Fri, 9 Aug 2019 15:54:03 -0700, T wrote:

On 8/8/19 5:00 PM, Eric Stevens wrote:
That's not always the case. It would help to know what the machine is
and whether the problem is the downloading of a control program or the
direct control of the machine.

This one only accesses the file system on the CNC machine.
You can basically only upload and download text files.

Right! So its not a toy machine.

And the text file is G code or similar?

Doesn't matter, all you are doing is downloading ASCII text. That
shouldn't be too difficult to sort out.
--


There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

Eric Stevens


Not sure what type of text it uses. They have the software and
have used it before. The distances involved and new replacement
computers is what started the problem. No serial ports on
their iMac and W10 laptop

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:


There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

Eric Stevens

and a third class who doesn't know what a sig delimiter is.

Thats another problem.


There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

Eric Stevens

fix it.

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2019-08-09 5:51 p.m., T wrote:
[...]
By the way, you guys realize that admitting you know RS232
means you are all old farts?* Under 50 has no idea what you are
talking about.* It takes a lot of years to become a proper
old fart.* What me???* An old fart too???* I am not!!!* I am
a curmudgeon.* Still have too may teeth to be a proper
old fart!* (That is a changing.)

-T

Why am I writing you guys again?* YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
Is Sparky still in the Navy?* Is Teddy still president?
I hate when this happens.* I have a lawn?

This may help you with my vintage, Many Many moons ago I had to build
an rs232 to 20 milliamp current loop adapter cable to run an RO35
teletype printer.

I know your vintage, because you posted your age at least once.

FYI, since this year, I keep a small Age_of_posters list and you are a
the top (oldest)! :-)

Keep up the good work.

Paul in Houston TX wrote:
[...]

Most scada equipment is RS-232.
Refineries, pipelines, industrial equipment... all run on RS-232
or some variant like 422/485. Some newer devices also have
usb 2 but few people trust that since a com failure sometimes means
that things explode and people die.

One would hope that the com using RS232 uses reliable flow control and
error detection and correction, otherwise RS232 would be worse than USB,
etc..

Hmmm, SCADA! Wonder what kind of com 'we' [2] used at Shell [1]? Can't
remember. Getting old! :-(

[1] Royal Dutch Shell, not 'your' Shell (but of course the two
cooperated to a degree).

[2] HP (me) writing low level OS code, like memory management,
watchdog 'daemon's, boot-to-run in a single disk access, etc., etc..

On Fri, 09 Aug 2019 23:24:19 -0500, Char Jackson
wrote:

--- snip ---

Do you remember my original question?

"That's not always the case. It would help to know what the machine
is and whether the problem is the downloading of a control program
or the direct control of the machine."

Yes, I recognize that text. It's all been hashed out, though. It's a CNC
machine, so by definition there is no 'direct control' of the machine.
What you have are a set of instructions that need to be sent to the
machine for execution, either one at a time (unusual) or in a batch
(much more common). I'm not sure why you want to revisit that, though.

Simplest machines rely on an attached computer to:

1. Receive the program for the work, whether Gcode, DXF, SVG or keyed
in by hand.
2. Convert the input to machine action code.
3. Convert the actions into machine dependent instruction.
4. Fire the instructions off to the machine for execution.

All serious machines (and in fact most machines these days)
incorporate much of 1 and all of 2,3,4 in their own firmware. But
older/entry level machines require a computer to look after all 4
tasks.

That's why I asked my original question, directed to ascertaining
whether the RS322 link was handling data type 1 or data type 4. Never
mind, it doesn't matter any more.
--


There are two classes of people. Those who divide people into
two classes and those who don't. I belong to the second class.

Eric Stevens