Problem recognizing a serial instrument with a USB adaptor in NIMax

[EricaK]

Hi Forum,

I have an instrument designed to be controled via serial signal with an RS232 cable and I am trying to get NIMax to recognize it and send some test commands.  My laptop (running Windows 7 Enterprise) has no serial port so I am using a USB adaptor to plug it in.  When I initially could not get the device to show up, I searched online and found suggestions that I should install the NI-VISA driver.  I downloaded and installed it, but it does not help-- the option to open the VISA test panels is grayed out and it says the device is "not present" even when it's plugged in.  When I open the VISA interactive control panel directly, the device shows up as a question mark, and if I double click it, it says the following:

Error opening resource:
ASRL10::INSTR

VISA:  (Hex 0xBFFF0011) Insufficient location information or the device or resource is not present in the system.

Any thoughts on how I can get my PC to communicate with the device?  Thanks in advance for your help.

Erica

[crossrulz]

Does the USB-Serial adapter show up in the Windows Device Manager?  Did you install the drivers for the USB-Serial adapter?

[EricaK]

Thanks for the tip, I did not realize I needed to install a separate driver for this.  Do you know if a general device driver like this one will work

https://serialio.com/drivers-and-set-up-usb-rs-232-adapter-in-windows

or do I need something specific in order for the device to work with NIMax?

Thanks,

Erica

[crossrulz · Accepted solution]

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@EricaK wrote:

Thanks for the tip, I did not realize I needed to install a separate driver for this.  Do you know if a general device driver like this one will work.

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You should install whatever Windows drivers are needed for your USB-Serial adapter (should have come with the adapter).  Once Windows sees the serial port, so will MAX.

[EricaK]

It worked, thanks for your help!