New laptop - Vista experiences with Omron

[BobB 58]

Just bought a new Dell Vostro with a 17" screen. WUXGA - wow!! Can run CAD on it very well but the fonts are set up to 120% and are still quite small but the screen is excellent. It has no serial or parallel ports at all - only USB and firewire. Running Vista also. Bought an express card/serial adaptor quite cheaply. It is working OK so far but have only hooked in to the serial port on a CP1L. Installs as a USB/serial adaptor. USB to the CP1L is fine. Bought a USB/parallel printer cable for my wire number thermal transfer printer (Brady 4244). It installs itself as USB printer support without software in Vista and works well. Installed Virtual Box from SUN and found the isntructions to be rather confusing. If you are going this way here is a link to a thread at PLCS.net that explains how to do it. There is also a link I have placed there in a post to set up a dual boot system quite easily. http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=39527 If you are going up the new laptop path I would strongly suggest you read the attached thread. A couple of people have contributed some really useful information. Omron CX-One software is working fine so far by the way. Have not tried the simulators yet though. Flying out on Wednesday to commission a job with a CJ1, NS8 and a web server. The web server software would not install on Vista and that is why I investigated Virtual Box and dual boot with XP. Should this thread also be in the lounge?

[PdL 71]

Hi Bob, Sounds good! It will be useful to have some experience reports for those that will have to switch to Vista somewhere in the near future... we can't escape it! Well if the thread concentrates on experiences with CX-One on Vista it's in the right place, if it continues as a general laptop topic I can always move it to the lounge.

[BobB 58]

One thing I should add is that the express card USB/serial adaptor installed itself as com 3 - a departure from previous USB/serial adaptors. The brand is Prolific.

[conalex 0]

I was recommended to get a cheap USB serial adapter on ebay, which turned out to be a Prolific adapter. No connection problems yet. Have used it many times, but only on two different devices.

[BobB 58]

I now have my 4 Promi Bluetooth serial ports installed and working on the new laptop using the inbuilt Bluetooth - NO MORE DONGLES to break/damage. I am curious why Vista allocates 2 COM ports to each Promi though, something about outgoing and incoming transmissions. The 1st Promi is Com 4 and 5 (Com 4 to the PLC) The 2nd Promi is Com 6 and 7 (Com 6 to the PLC) The 3rd Promi is Com 8 and 9 (Com 8 to the PLC) The 4th Promi is Com 10 and 11 (Com 10 to the PLC) I do not know if I can add any more as the basis of the Bluetooth serial ports was 7 per Bluetooth device with XP Pro. The first port was not accessible and the Com numbers ran 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 for the 7 Promi serial ports. Will have to buy a new one and see if it connects at all when I get back from commissioning. Maybe Vista is more different that at first thought with respect to comms.

[Sleepy Wombat 27]

Even though i ordered my laptop, from Dell also, three days before you Bobb I am still waiting for mine... 1st time i rang them ... mm problem with supplies of screens 2nd time mm problem with supplies of batterys - funny no trace of the screen supply problem neddless to say i am a little pi$$ed off with this. Plus i hate hearing the coporate line of problem with supplies from blah blah blah... thats what the logistics manger is all about and if they can;t do their damm job then they shuold go back to selling McDonalds Big Mac's.. Rant off (for the time being....)

[BobB 58]

Just back from a week of fun and excitement. A 400mm pipe let go and flooded everything. Had a few problems with the Prolific express card serial port. CX-Server stopped working regularly, the port was not released and I had to re-boot Vista. The express card does not stay firmly in the slot either. May be the driver - will have to check for an update. Also did not have the latest Omron updates installed and that may be a problem. Went to an electronics shop and bought a Belkin F5U109 USB/serial adaptor - did not have my Omron one with me. It was so old that there was not even a Vista driver with it. Downloaded a driver and found the thing worked really well. Has the added advantage that tgere are link, RX and TX lights on the thing. Genreally not a bad experience - did not have to revert to Virtual Box or boot XP-Pro at all once I had the Belkin device. Will have to update CX-One and see how things go next time. By the way I must recommend the Dell 17" screen - the resolution and clarity is excellent and I was running it at the highest resolution with small font.

[Sleepy Wombat 27]

My new Dell Vostro 1510 computer has arrived, specd the machine up as much as i could. Came pre-installed with Win XP Pro SP2. Purchased the downgrade rights for Vista Business for not a few dollars more... Have created a dual boot system, XP and Vista, will use virtual machines for siemens software hopefully at least then it can only infect the virtual machine... Have successfully installed OMRON CX-One package, I seem to like the clean look of vista so far, and in a way prefer it to XP. Like everthing thing else, like a new PLC software, just got to find the old things, and get to play with new things... The addon gadgets for the sidebar are cool.

[Arjan 0]

A heads up to to the people who are not aware of it. Dell sells the latitude D630 and it has an actual serial port on the back. No card reader & webcam options etc., but I really like mine. It also has the non shiny screen (matte) which is imo nicer for every day use. It's a 14.1" screen with 1400x900 resolution. Vista ultimate gives me no problems with CX-One by the way. Mine came with both XP & Vista. XP was installed and instead of upgrading I installed Vista next to XP. All works fine. I've also seen a PCMCIA serial adapter, I think that installs as an actual hardware serial port not an emulated one.

[BobB 58]

I made a not further up that I had problems with a Prolific cadbus/232 adaptor and had given it away. It did not fit in the slot proeperly either. I now use my Omron USB/232 converter quite happily. I am looking at the possibility of buying an Adam USB/422/485 converter. One of my customers has one. It looks pretty good.