Serial communications on your PC

This guide shows you how to easily generate and receive serial ASCII data with your PC.

We use and recommend a free application called Realterm. (See here if you want to use HyperTerminal instead.) If your PC doesn't have a 9 pin serial port, you can use a USB to RS232 or USB to RS485 converter. Choose one with an FTDI chipset. EasySync do a good range.



First, click on the "Display" tab. You can choose whether to display characters as ASCII (human readable) or HEX.









Now click the "Port" tab and select the COM port you want to use. The settings shown suit most London Electronics applications...









Now click the "Send" tab. You can mix Hex and ASCII in your sent string very easily.

Any hex characters should be preceded by \x so to sent Carriage Return, which is HEX 0D, type \x0D







We have a 9 pin D connector plugged into the COM port, which we use for all simple RS232 ASCII comm's tests.

Use the scheme below ....



Hope that helps,


Graham Laming


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