Elanscan USB interface "Problems"

[Farran]

Hi,

Just got round to trying the USB interface today and don't have a clue how to configure it to work to my laptop which is running with windows XP.

Connected the cable to the laptop, it finds the Elanscan cable, and then it is looking for a driver to configure it. Where can I find a driver? I did download a driver but that was not compatible with it.

Also is there anything else I need to do to run the Elanscan

Can anyone help?

Thanks

Farran

[John_W]

Farran,
I've got Windows98 on my laptop, so it's a bit different from yours. Yours should be easier.

Download the driver from ESM's site http://www.astb91.dsl.pipex.com/VCP.zip

Then read the thread on this link for instructions which direct you to clear driver installation instructions on the Moates website.

You will have to set the latency (whatever that is) to a value of 1. This is done with the USB interface connected to the computer and the driver already installed. You find the right control panel or whatever it is in your operating system for the USB interface and go into advanced settings until you find latency, then select a value of 1.

Should work OK after that.

John

[GeoffSmith]

Thanks for that John.

Alan's old website also details the install procedure here.

[Farran]

Hi John/Geoff,

Thanks for the reply. I have managed to get the software installed and the laptop now see's the cable as a USB/serial adaptor, is this right?

I will try and connect it to the car early next week and let you know how I get on.

Thanks again.

Farran

[GeoffSmith]

That's right. You should remember which COM port it is assigned to, as this is the one that you should use in ElanScan.

Geoff

[surfboardfiller]

I can't install my new USB cable on Windows XP but look forward to some new drivers
Cheers,

Phil

[GeoffSmith]

I'm afraid the FTDI interface doesn't quite do what it said on the tin!

I've spent quite a bit of time getting to the bottom of the problem and it would appear that I have changed a setting that stops the standard drivers loading on a pc that hasn't seen an FTDI interface before. It works fine on my pc's, but they must have seen the virgin interface lead and have learned to mutate to support the ElanScan lead configuration. I eventually managed to rid one machine of all the legacy stuff that's dotted around the pc when you load anything and I can replicate the problem that Paul and Phil have been having. I hope that I can work around it by "massaging" the initialisation files.

I'll let you know as soon as I've got a solution.

Geoff

Bill Gates is a b***ard

[surfboardfiller]

Can you put the files back on the machine you deleted to see which ones make it work? Or do we need to rename the cable?

[ESM]

I had a similar problem with the interface I made. The driver from ActiveRobots (who made the board I used) had a different manufacturer id to the FTDI one. The ActiveRobots driver was completely useless because it was based on an older FTDI driver that didn't support the latency setting. The FDI wouldn't install because the id was wrong. I had to hack the FTDI driver to get it to install (I don't think my driver will work with this because the id is different again). I'll have a look and see if I can bodge up the driver for Geoff's interface though.

[ESM]

Hhhhmmm can't replicate the issue.

1) I downloaded the FTDI drivers from [url=http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm]here
[/url] and unzipped them to a folder

2) Plugged one of Geoff's cables into a brand new laptop with a clean XP install (no possibility of an old FTDI driver on it)

3) XP detected the hardware and asked drivers and I told it to search in the folder where I put the drivers (the install is the same as here except the drivers are signed in this case)

4) It installed no problem and said the device was ready to use

Don't use the drivers on my site, they have a different manufacturer id and won't work with Geoff's interface even though the hardware is similar. The Microsoft XP paranoid driver installation system sees to that.

[Gary]

Yep, I can confirm this works.

Only thing you need to do is check which port it has installed with and then set Elanscan to use that one

[surfboardfiller]

YES Seems to work will update, make sure its not the XP x64 version you download. Unless you have 64 bit version of XP (which I don't)

Cheers!

ESM Chip Here I come!

[GeoffSmith]

Yep, I can confirm this works.

Only thing you need to do is check which port it has installed with and then set Elanscan to use that one

Gary,

Good news! If you go into computer management | Device Manager | Ports (COM & LPT) then you should see which COM port number has been assigned to the interface. Use that in ElanScan and you should be alright.

Geoff

PS I don't know how that worked Alan because once I cleared my pc of all remnants of the drivers, the FTDI driver install wouldn't work!

[surfboardfiller]

For: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/CDM/Win ... .00.00.zip

Thanks!

[GeoffSmith]

Alan,

Forgot to mention it, but if you change: [FtdiPort232.NT.HW.AddReg]..HKR,,"LatencyTimer",0x00010001,16 to HKR,,"LatencyTimer",0x00010001,1
in FTDIPORT.INF, you don't have to worry about manually setting the latency to 1.

Geoff

[GeoffSmith]

Glad to see you're OK now Phil!

FTDI have updated their utilities and included FTClean - that would have saved a bit of time the other night.
[EDIT: No it wouldn't. It doesn't remove everything. ]

[ESM]

BTW while you're in the advanced port set-up change the buffers to the smallest sizes, its not critical but it helps. Geoff might make a driver hack for that too!