D Series serial connection issues

[Werner_Schneider]

Dear Support,

I'm using several units of teh D series in my cockpit and had a Win XP computer with a real serial port for regular download of my data. Now that Laptop is slowly dying so I've tried a new Win 7 Laptop with a Sewell (Prolific) USB 2 Serial Adapter. That Adapter works perfect for downloading data from my Garmin 196, however attemping to connect to any D unit, the unit is recognized and the yellow com screen comes up but then communication dies. The Adapter is recognized depending on the USB port as Com3 or 4. On the old laptop the same behaviour is visible, the Adapter is recognized as Com 8 Dynon Software sees it but it seems like a one way communication. I ahve always to switch back to Com 1 to reset the unit and get it working again

Any advice how to remedy that problem?

Many thanks

Werner

 

[Dynon]

Sounds like a driver issue for that USB-Serial converter, though, the fact that you're able to get data from the 196 makes it sound like the computer CAN receive data, whereas the Dynon connectivity problem would imply that it can send data, but not receive anything back.

Have you tried using the driver on our website as an alternative to the ones that came with the device (or that windows auto-installed?). No promises that it would work, but worth a try.

 

[Werner_Schneider]

Finally yesterday was, after a while, again a day without rain so got a bit of flying in. At the end tried the Dynon Driver out, unfortunately without success, where the Garmin again downloaded without any issue. As the chipset is exactly what you have in yours I'm a bit lost Could you share what xact brand your converter is as I guess that one works with Win7/8?
Update, did find today the correct package on the Prolific Site. Managed to install on Win7 the Driver (2013) however checking my Adapter tells me Win8 will not work. Will Report next week the outcome.

Thanks Werner

 

[Dynon]

Also, when changing between drivers, use the Windows device manager to fully uninstall the previous driver, and reboot in between that operation and installing a different driver.

Ours are basically unbranded (bulk generic imports).

 

[Werner_Schneider]

Thanks, I did that (with the device Manager) under WIN 7 it Shows now correctly installed however the communication does still not work with the D series Question, when you are using that USB2Serial are you using it on COM1/2 or above? Can you test if that works as well with COM3/4 on a WIN7 home premium Edition PC?

Thanks for your help

Werner

 

[Dynon]

Windows picks a COM port based on the next available (whenever a device is plugged in - it holds that COM port until the USB-serial converter is unplugged and plugged back in to the computer, at which point it might grab a new one). The support program then goes and looks at every COM port that the system reports is available, and looks for an EFIS on them for a few seconds at a time (and then moves on if it doesn't see an EFIS). In short, it should work with any available COM port.

 

[Werner_Schneider]

Thanks, I've seen that behaviour (except that Windows seems to match each USB port with a specific Com port under Win7/8 which the number can be changed via the device Manager). However Win7 does not work with the D series where with the Garmin it always works flawlessly.

If you could please do a test with Win 7 I would appreciate, next I will test the USB with my old XP.

Thanks Werner

 

[lrfrey]

Has there been any further information or solution found for this problem?  I have the same issue with my lap top that worked well until one day last week. At first I sucessfully updated my EFIS, but failed on the EMS.  Now it fails on both the EFIS and the EMS..  This is a Vista system.

Thanks, Larry

 

[Dynon]

Just just tested with Windows 7, 64 bit version, com 4 (though the last thing doesn't matter really). We actually accidentally (against our own advice) used the drivers that windows automatically installs from windows update, and they appeared to work great with our USB-Serial converter (the silver / blue one).

We further realized that the driver installation package on our website won't actually install onto a Windows 7 machine, so the Windows-base drivers are basically what everyone is using in this scenariod.

 

[lrfrey]

Thanks. I reloaded the driver from your site and that was successful, however did not resolve the problem. I was sure I had replaced all the cables from the PC to EMS but decided to do it again. Sure enough, the serial cable was bad! It now resides in the big round can, never to be seen again! Thanks for the help

Larry

 

[Werner_Schneider]

Re: D Series serial connection issues (Prolific)

So I finaly found a solution for my Problem. Intensive search in the internet did help. Prolific 2303 USB2Serial are no longer official supported from Win 8 on by the manufacturer you have to buy a new product from them. I had it working with my Garmin 196 up and downloading, but the D series hanged up!

I now bought for a bit less then 20$ a new USB to serial, that one has an FTDI chipset, Win 8 has a generic driver and IT DOES WORK ;D ! I even got an updated driver but did not yet install it.

So I can again download my engine data (important after an expensive rebuild).

I can only highly recommend to steer away from Prolific and use a converter with an FTDI chipset. I found many similar recommendation in the Internet!

http://www.usconverters.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=62

I myself bought this one:

http://www.digitus.info/en/products/accessories/adapter-and-converter/usb-to-serial-adaptor-usb-20-da-70156/

Cheers Werner

 

[Dynon]

Also, for those following this thread, we've discovered that the original USB-Serial converters (gray cable, blue connectors) that we sold years ago aren't compatible with windows 8. However, the latest ones we have (black cable and connector) are.