Memos From the Cube

Well, I could have guessed right from the start, but my new USB-Serial cable doesn’t work. It has some life in it, identifying as a “USB SERI” device - but the driver doesn’t seem to be included on the awful mess they call a driver CD. The most annoying part is that it’s almost certainly just a standard Prolific or FTDI chip that’s been reprogrammed to identify as a proprietary adapter, and so won’t work with the standard drivers from the chip manafacturer’s website. Raaawr!

Honestly, I’m fed up with cheap Chinese electronics. Years ago I liked being able to purchase things for cheap, even if the end-result was a slightly less than perfect device. Nowadays purchasing anything from China is an invitation to a 9th rate product with no English manual and only a 2% chance of success. I’ve been sticking to decent products for a little while now and only broke down on this one because I didn’t want to pay $40 for what is $2 worth of chips, a socket and some cable. I think I’ll end up just converting one of the (working) SmileyMicros USB-BB adaptors which work perfectly well, but are unsuitable for a few of my applications due to having 0/5V logic rather than RS232 levels.

I’ve contacted the eBay seller with the naiive hope of actually getting some assistance.

Update: Well, I tried. Seems it’s Prolific-chip based like my last one, except with different custom IDs. I tried hacking the XP install driver to use the cable’s VID and device ID, but just like the last one the driver fails to install, with windows giving the very helpful “System can’t find the file specified” error message. May Prolific burn in the very fires of hell for their ridiculously defective products.

Update #2: Jigger me timbers! I asked some of the seller’s other customers who bought the cable about the XP driver. One was very helpful, and directed me to the correct driver. Seems it’s not a prolific based chip at all (like my last ones) - it’s a HL-340 model converter with it’s own driver. I can’t believe it’s actually working! No more running between rooms to test out my firmware anymore ;).