Quote:
Originally Posted by thingstodo
Hmm. ... I verified the serial settings from one of my old videos.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that the ground pin on your serial was not making good contact. The random stuff on the screen looks like about the right number of characters, but not even one of them is correct. It should hopefully be isolated from your laptop so the only place to check is between pins on the serial cable end.
You can check the voltages on the pins. Referenced to the ground pin, the transmit and receive pins should toggle 0 - 5V, which should be OK with any modern USB to serial. Pin 5 is Gnd, as you already know.
If you have a scope handy - it's easier to see the signal level on a scope than on a meter that averages the voltages.
There is a very small chance that your converter is looking for voltages that are not 0V and 5V. The old style RS232 is actually specified as -12V and +12V for signals, and high is over 8V and low is below -8V .... but now I'm digging pretty deep looking for something that might be wrong.
I feel your pain .. went through something similar with my Cougar controller. Never really did get it working very well before I killed the Cougar.
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Unfortunately, I don't have a scope. As far as testing the ground connection, what should I measure from TX and RX to ground when connected and waiting? Thanks!