Trouble reading RS-232 output from a Granville-Phillips 358 Micro-Ion Gauge using a serial to Ethernet converter.

[MilesT]

I've been attempting to read output from a Granville-Phillips 258 Micro-Ion Vacuum Gauge Controller in LabView. I am using a StarTech RS-232 Serial over IP Ethernet Device Server to send serial communication over Ethernet. Serial output comes from the Micro-Ion Gauge out of a DB25S connector. I have a wire running from that into the DB9 port on the serial to Ethernet converter. From there it runs into the computer. The serial to Ethernet converter comes with software called VCOM that i'm using to create a virtual COM port. I then use NI MAX to recognize the COM port. In LabView, I have a VI thats identical to the "Simple Serial" tutorial program that NI provides. In my VI I configure the serial port with all defaults except for the control flow, which is set to RTS/CTS. The Micro-Ion Gauge is set to a command-response system by default, so as per the manual, I send "DS CG1 \r\n" in a string constant over the virtual COM port. This should have the gauge send the reading on its display. The program waits 500 ms before using the bytes at port property node and reading that many bytes at the COM port. Every time I run the program zero bytes are read. The serial to Ethernet converter is recognized by the computer and VCOM program. The lights on the converter indicate that data is being sent to the ion gauge, but none is being received. I am using LabView 2019.

Attached is a picture of the VI.

Sorry for the sloppy VI and the wall of text, and thank you for any help!

[MilesT]

Note: When I replace the read at bytes property node with a constant, I get the error -1073807339 (read timed out)

[MilesT]

It appears that the manual was unclear about input formatting. Issue solved.

[BertMcMahan]

Might not be a bad idea to record what exactly you did to fix it for future Googler's.

[GenTek]

I have the same issue trying to read data back from a Granville Phillips 358 gauge controller.  Your post mentions that the manual was unclear on how the unit is expecting input (ie. com settings).  Can you reply with your fix?

Thanks

[MilesT]

Hello,

unfortunately I have still not found a fix for this problem. I have been talking to MKS support of quite some time about the issue, but to no avail. Most recently one of their engineers suggested switching the RX and TX lines on the input cable. It didn't work for me, but its something you could try.