USB-485 on OSX?

[slucas]

hello one and all,

i have a NI USB-485 cable and i want to use it under Mac OSX.  how do i do this?  ni-serial has the drivers for windows and linux but apparently not for osx.  how come and how do i work around that?

thank you in advance and talk to you soon.  lucas

[slucas]

hey one and all, a little more information. NI-VISA under OSX shows me ASRLx::INSTR where x=1 or 2. it also shows me a USB Resourced Name: USB0::0x3923::0x703C::NI-VISA-4250140672::RAW when i unplug the USB-485 cable from the computer and Refresh VISA it disappears. it reappears upon Refresh after i plug the USB-485 cable back in. so obviously, the above USB RAW resource is the USB-485 cable. i also have a USB-GPIB-HS cable plugged in the OSX machine and it is working in typical NI excellence. so here is my bone on contention with the USB-485 cable not working under OSX. first, the hardware is a valid solution for RS422/485 devices under max. second, obviously the GPIB bus is far more complicated and almost as legacy as RS422/485, so the OSX driver for the USB-GPIB-HS must be more complicated then a potential driver for the USB-485. also, i believe that the USBus system must be somewhat similar to RS232/422/485 serial bus systems. so why isn't there a driver for the USB-485 cable for OSX? i am really not taking "no" or "no way" as the final word. and perhaps i am in ignorance and there is an OSX driver for this cable. if so, then please correct me and show me the err of my ways. i would welcome such a correction to have the driver. perhaps it is just a matter of retasking the /dev/ttyXX stuff so that VISA will see it as a ASRL3::INSTR. perhaps someone who is a USB driver expert can write such a driver, or someone at NI can pound it out in a few hours. i would accept any solution at this point that is stable and solid and gets me connected and communicating with my RS422 device. thanx in advance and i hope i am not too hard in my post. lucas

[Michelle_N]

slucas,

Unfortunately, there are only NI-Serial drivers for Windows. Just to clarify, there is no NI-Serial for Linux or Mac OS X. The only option for NI based RS485 solution on Mac OS X is using an ENET-485 with VISA.

[slucas]

well, that is not cool.  the USB-485 cable is $150 and many many of your competitors have a similar cable for a third or less the price with cross-platform drivers.  i thought labview and such related drivers origininated or preferred the MAC OS not OSX platform for National Instruments??

i mean having a USB to RS422/RS485 interface is just as valid for the mac then for windows.  how about providing the drivers for OSX? lucas

[Michelle_N]

There is no Mac OS X driver for the USB-485.

[slucas]

yes, i hear you.  how about getting a beta version into the works?  i will happily gladly test and QA it.  anything to help out each other.

[slucas]

what happened?  i hear crickets in the background.  is writing the driver out of the question for NI?  lucas

[Mr._Jim]

slucas,

As it turns out, I'm in a similar situation.  I just went looking for native support for RS485 on Linux, but this thread provided me with the information I was seeking.  Many thanks to Michelle_B for graciously answering questions.

"i thought labview and such related drivers origininated or preferred the MAC OS not OSX platform for National Instruments??"

While I can't speak specifically regarding OSX, I'm using LabVIEW very, very successfully on Linux.  For the most part it has pleasantly surprised me with its feature set and efficiency on the OS I'm using (SUSE).  However, you've got to read the fine print on a lot of the NI hardware to see if it's supported by the OS you're using.  All of it's supported on Windows, but it starts getting dicey when you're running Linux or OSX.  In some cases I've had to develop some workarounds for officially unsupported hardware, but it's definitely been worth it.

"i mean having a USB to RS422/RS485 interface is just as valid for the mac then for windows."

Sure, I guess it's "valid," but for NI or any other business, "valid" is defined by whether NI forsee a sizable market for it.  They don't have to support their hardware on every OS out of benevolence, but if there's enough demand for it, you can bet that they will, and when NI supports stuff they almost always do so excellently, in my opinion.  As for serial devices, you get what you pay for.  (Don't ask me how I know)  While it's indeed a bummer that NI doesn't support most 485 devices on OSX/Linux, that's just the way it goes.  If you like the competitors' products, have at them and vote with your wallet.

Again, thanks very much, Michelle_B, for your answers.

Jim

[salviya]

nice....

[cutie]

The obvious solution is to use an FTDI-based chipset, which provides a very nice range of driver and library options on multiple platforms, and typically for a fifth of the cost of this NI product.  I don't know where all that money is going, but it's certainly not to support the NI customers.