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rwraley

Dataliner comms

6 posts in this topic

Has anyone tried to connect a Dataliner to laptop to up/download program? The software is Dos based and I can manipulate all file management with laptop to select desired file to download but when you open the software in a DOS window you get a Windows 16 bit message that DL40.exe could not open specified com port (com1) when I'm using com2. It gives you the option to ignore this message. I ignored and went in and changed my port connection to com1 and it has same message but with (com 2) as the one it can't open. I have also tried manipulating port assignments from the hardware manager. I'm pretty sure this is a conflict with the fact that my laptop has no real serial port only USB and I have to use a USB to serial converter to interface with DL40. Is there any known work around or USB/RS232 converter that will solve issue (other than get a computer with a real serial port)? My local A/B guy tells me there is no windows software for the Dataliners.

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You are dealing with two potential problems. The first, like you already discovered, is the fact that your computer does not have a serial port. I can't say for a fact as I haven't tried it, but I don't think this in itself is your problem. I think the real issue is that you are trying to use a DOS program in XP that wants to access a COM port. I couldn't tell you the underlying reason behind this, but DOS programs in general usually have trouble communicating in Windows, especially NT/XP. So now here's the paradox.. If you boot up from a DOS disk (do you even have a floppy drive? :) the dataliner program will run properly but you won't have access to the USB ports. If you boot up in XP, the DOS program won't work but the USB port will be recognized. Sounds like you might want to invest in a cheap old notebook with DOS and a serial port!

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I have run DL20 software in a DOS window in Win 2K with no problems. The PC has a real serial port - comms was no problem. So I would vote for the problem being related to the USB-serial adapter and drivers.

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The problem was that I was running the software exe. file from a network drive. Once I made the program resident on my hard drive the issue cleared. I still can't communicate with the rs232 port on the DL40 but I still might have USB to serial issues. I need to tinker more. If all else fails there is the DH+ or the pass through option from RIO.

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OK, I finally figured it out. You can't use the DL40's resident file transfer function within the DOS window (shell). You have to have WINPFT file transfer utility which is included in RS View. If you don't have RS View you can download it from the Rockwell Knowledgebase site. Open the winpft utility, click download select file for download, set communications parameters and bingo. Thanks for the help.

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Well you learn something new every day.. I thought the PFT utility was strictly for panelviews!

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