USB to Serial cables

A heads up to anyone having problems getting their computer to talk to your Dynon.
I recently bought a new "netbook", and was trying to upgrade to v5.2 firmware. I downloaded both the Dynon support program and the drivers for the Dynon supplied Prolific USB to serial cable. This cable had worked for me in the past on a different laptop. This time it didn't. Lots of trouble shooting, achieved nothing. So over to Radio Shack to try another cable. Bingo! New cable did the trick. A Gigaware 26-949, 40 bucks.
This was also the fix for Scott Hersha's new netbook also.
In the past, I had problems on a D10, with USB to Serial cables that were hit or miss.
Hope this might help someone.

I went through this with another system on my new netbook and tried 5 different USB to Serial cables. Some of the cables have drivers that are several years old and no new updated drivers. The one I got to work had drivers that were only a few months old. I dont think there is a hugh demand for the USB to serial adapters anymore and a lot of them still on the market are outdated for the new netbooks.

Its a c r a p shoot with all those USB to serial adaptors. Seems the makers of them things all decided to make sure they all followed different standards when developing them.

netbook USB to serial adapter

FWIW I found this Cables Unlimited USB to serial adapter works fine up to 115.2 kbaud on my Acer Aspire netbook with the default Windows XP driver:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812339013

$17 plus shipping, may be worth a try.

--Paul

jthocker said:

... So over to Radio Shack to try another cable. Bingo! New cable did the trick. A Gigaware 26-949, 40 bucks.
....

Click to expand...

I bought the same cable to get my Windows 7 machine to talk to the Dynons.

My old cable worked fine with Vista but for some reason I couldn't find a Windows 7 driver for it.

The windows 7 driver for the USB-Serial cable we provide is right on the download page of our website, right under the firmware updates.

We've updated many EFIS and EMS units under Windows 7 with no problems.

http://dynonavionics.com/docs/support_software.html

If you want the driver direct from the manufacturer, it's here:

http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31

N941WR said:

I bought the same cable to get my Windows 7 machine to talk to the Dynons.

My old cable worked fine with Vista but for some reason I couldn't find a Windows 7 driver for it.

Click to expand...

The truth is by using Windows 7 you are on the cutting edge of the computer tech world. This operating system is new enough that many legacy hardware items will have problems with drivers for Win 7 until they can get up to speed changing them. Any item you purchase in a brick and mortar store will most likely have old versions of software. Because of this it is always a good idea to go to the manufacturer's website and download their most current drivers for your new hardware.