USB -> Serial/RS232 Convertors

Oct 12, 2011 7 Replies

What is the recommended USB -> Serial convertor for usage with the latest Win7/64bit OS?



In the past, I've been pleased with the performance of a Belkin device as it had RX/TX indicators and drivers were immediately available. Now I find that this device is not supported by the manufacturer with Win7/64.



Thank you in advance for your advice, TomC


FTDI makes the chips and also has cables with pretty blue LEDs for TX and RX indicators

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They have drivers for 64-bit Windows at
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Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

None, Use a PCI card..

If there is a USB->serial that works reliably under Win7, I havent found it.

Cheers

There are two main chipsets for USBRS232: FTDI and Prolific. Different convertors are just different packages for one of those two chipsets. Both chipsets work fine with any OS; make sure you downloaded latest drivers from the chip maker website (not from the gadget maker).

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

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I'd say Silicon Labs also deserve a mention. For hobbyist use, the FT232R seems to be the most popular, since it is preprogrammed with both device IDs and unique serial numbers, and is available in a hand-solderable package.

There is one catch, however: There are Chinese knockoffs of the Prolific chips around. These knockoff chips do not work with Windows

7/64. Prolific publish drivers, so I'd expect them to work with genuine chips.
RoRo

I'm not really happy with the stability of the FTDI drivers. I have better experience with Silabs chips.

Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply indicates you are not using the right tools... nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) --------------------------------------------------------------

Many PCs still have a serial port. Usually the people seeking usb to serial are notebook users.

Some of the old Socketcom cards work under win7. Those cards are just like a real serial port.

Lets see if I can find the old link I had..

Nope, but interesting...

I had problems with win7x32 so, I would go with them next time.

Cheers

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