For some reason the commands sent to my instrument, an intellegent power control unit, are not responding properly. The commands are definitely recieved (I can tell by an led light that flashes everytime info is received) so I know the connection is there. My question is could it be the while loop that is messing it up or maybe it needs some carriage return? The commands are usually sent through telnet and are very picky about what it will accept IE if you put a space before or after the command after entering it, it will not work, and if you enter the command and hit backspace at all it won't work. Does anyone have any suggestions?