[time-nuts] TBOLT communication

[Arnold Tibus]

Hi Neville,
I do run my Thunderbolt very successful for quite a while and I do use either my stationary PC (running still with Win2000 on com1 or 2) or with my Laptop (Lenovo T43p with Win XP pro and USB2 ports) and had 
never a connection problem. For the connection to the USB port I use in general a Prolific cable interface, but I tried as well another model. 

I never experienced communication problems with this Prolofic USB/ RS232 converter with any RS232 device either, even when using another USB interface of another brand as a.m.
The com ports on my Laptop do change as well (eg. between 1, 3, 5 and 10 if I remember well). This seem to be normal using a.m OS and may happen any time I do connect or disconnect anything to the USB ports 
and switching on/ off. Of course, the next switch on the TBoltMon may not find the right I/F to work anymore.

But it's quite easy to solve this "problem" when working with TBoltMon (v.2.60).
In detail:
After the el. switch on of Thunderbolt connect the RS232 I/F via the RS232/ USB converter to the PC/ Laptop and start TboltMon. Select on the 1st window (com selection list) com1, the main window will come up 
with a lot of question marks if no connection via com1 is active. Right click with the mouse somewhere inside the main window of TBoltMon. After selecting in the next window 'Auto Find All' a green mark on the right 
side of the port list (1 to 16) does show up where the system found the Thunderbolt communication. A double click on the corresponding number beside it does then activate this connection, the data transfer will start 
immediately. 
Of course, when necessary I have to repeat this quick procedure everytime I restart TBoltmon. But once this interface is activated, the connection does stay stable until I switch it off.
Other programs perhaps do need more steps to overcome this USB/ com port jump competition.

I wish you success!

Arnold
.  


On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:58:24 +1000, Neville Michie wrote:

>Hi,
>I have just spent a week or two trying to talk to a Trimble Thunderbolt.
>I have a laptop running VISTA, about which there is little to say.
>The laptop has no serial ports, but I have some USB/Serial converters  
>that successfully run
>my HP 3815A and a Samsung GCRU/D, and also communicate with my HOBO  
>loggers.
>The USB/Serial converters are a little difficult to use, sometimes  
>hanging, necessitating
>unplugging and plugging back in. They get assigned to various Port  
>numbers but tend to keep
>the same number from day to day. The ports can be configured in the  
>management function.
>However the TBOLT refuses to talk to the converter, to the extent  
>that I thought that I must have
>damaged the TBOLT.
>Today, as a last resort, I remembered an old PC, dragged it out and  
>stoked it up, and to my delight
>the TBOLT monitoring program ran without difficulty under Windows  
>2000 with a conventional serial port.
>Now I vaguely remember talk about RS232 communications and the need  
>for pull up or down
>resistors and supplies, but searching the archives I could find  
>nothing relevant.
>Can anyone tell me how I could run the TBOLT off a USB/Serial converter?
>cheers, Neville Michie

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