Test and Measurement Forum

Hi

We have a serial TC-08 which worked well until we had to change PC and then it suffered from intermittent and random hangs. We have a thought that the unit mayb collect data Ok but only crash when the graph is moved. This needs to be confirmed however.

Following a suggestion from elsewhere in the the forum we have purchased a USB-serial converter for PICO. Sadly we cannot get this to work either. This is what I have tried:

1. Converter lead unplugged.
2. Install driver software. Reboot PC.
3. Connect cable (not TC-08).
4. Upon checking in control panel I can not see an entry for 'USB to serial interface' under device manager-universal serial bus controller.
5. 'Serial to USB[com4]' is present but this clashes with another device on that port. I then change the port to another (although the port I select initially shows as free it does say its allocated upon selection). I select anyhow.
6. I load Recorder and select the appropriate com port for my converter but is does not locate it. Using serial PICO software.

We have reverted to the serial cable and I will try the USB-serial cable on another PC.

Any thoughts on what could be causing the driver software to not intsall the 'USB to serial interface controller' ?

Thanks
Duncan

Hi Duncan,

If you browse to the Pico folder

C:\Program Files\Pico Technology\Pico Full\

there should be a file called tc0832.dll this is the driver file for the TC-08, if it is not located there then perhaps you may have installed the software for the USB TC-08 rather than the serial TC-08.

Give that a look and let me know how you get on.

Kind regards

Hi,

We have installed the software on a new PC. Under device manager it shows new entries under the ports section and usb controller.

After installing the pico serial software and instructing in to use converter on com5 we get the following error message when trying to setup new settings.

I can confirm the .dll file you mention is in the pico directory.

Thanks
Duncan

That is very strange, are you sure that the TC-08 is working? I would try and measure the voltages from pin 7 and pin 4 which should be greater than +7V and -7V respectively from the USB to serial converter.