CoolGear USBG-8COM-PRO User manual

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USBG-8COM-PRO
USBG-8COM-PRO 8-Port USB to RS-232, 422, 485 Auto Setup Adapter Manual
The USBG-8COM-PRO 2-Port Series Industrial I/O Adapters are
advanced USB to Serial Adapters that connect to 1, 2, 4 or 8 RS-
232/422/485 serial devices. The adapters make industrial
communication port expansion quick and simple. Connecting to a USB
port on your computer or USB hub, the series Industrial I/O Adapters
instantly add RS-232/422/485 ports to your system. By taking
advantage of the USB bus, the PRO Series Industrial I/O Adapters make
it easier than ever to add RS-232 /422/485 devices to your system with
easy plug-and-play and hot plug features.
When plugging the Industrial I/O Adapter to the USB port, the adapter
is automatically detected and installed. There are no IRQ & COM port
conflicts, since the ports don’t require any additional IRQ, DMA, memory as resources on the system. The RS-232 / 422 /
485 ports function as native Windows COM ports, and are compatible with Windows serial communication applications.
The USBG-8COM-PRO 2-Port Series Industrial I/O Adapter can be set to work in different RS-232/422/485 modes. The
serial port can be configured and set independently to a specific operation mode. All the PRO Series Adapters are
designed in RS-422 mode or RS-485 mode, to provide options to configure termination and biasing of data transmission
lines. As per the requirement of your applications, you can enable or disable Tx, Rx 120 Ohm termination resistor and Tx,
Rx 750 Ohm BIASing resistor conveniently by software.
One of the unique features of this serial adapter is that the products are configured by user-friendly hardware
configuration utility program “UsbComCfg”. There is no need to open the case of the product to set jumpers to enable
or disable a specific function. You can easily check the status of serial port operation modes of each port by seeing the
color of the LEDs and by running the provided utility or any terminal programs.
Features & Specifications
•Adds high speed RS-232 / 422 / 485 port via USB connection
•384 byte receive buffer
•128 byte transmit buffer for high speed data throughput
•Additional I/O or IRQ not required
•Serial transmission speed up to 921.6 Kbps
•Suitable for 4-wire RS-422/485 and 2-wire RS-485 applications
•Auto transmit buffer control for 2-wire RS-485 half-duplex operation
•Tx ,Rx Termination resistors installed on-board and easy enable/disable via software utility or console port
•Tx , Rx BIASing resistors installed on-board and easy enable/disable via software utility or console port
•Easy operation mode change via software utility or console port
•Monitor LEDs of TxD, RxD of each port indicating port status
•Monitor LEDs of mode indicating serial port operation mode
•Virtual COM port drivers available for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Windows 7.
Specifications
•Interface: USB 2.0 (up to 480 Mbps)
•Serial connector: 8 DB9 male connectors

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•Power Supply: Built-in internal switching power supply
Windows 7 / Vista / 2003 / XP / 2000 Driver Installation
You need to have administrator privileges to install any new drivers under Windows 7/ Vista / 2003/ XP / 2000. To install
the driver or update the configuration please log onto Windows as "Administrator" or ask your system administrator to
install the USB to serial driver.
NOTE: You need to install driver first, prior to hardware installation. Do not connect the VSCOM USB PRO Series Industrial
I/O Adapters to the USB port of your computer, before you finish driver installation.
Please proceed with the following steps to install the driver:
1. Insert the “USB COM Series Driver and Utility” CD into your CD-ROM.
2. The “USB COM Series Driver and Utility CD” dialog box appears.
3. Under “Driver Installation”, double click “Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, 2000 driver” to install the device driver.
4. The USB COM install program will auto-detect the OS type and install the driver automatically. (Note: in
Windows 7 or Vista OS you will find another dialog box, please click on “OK” to confirm the drivers install
program).
5. After the message “FTDI CDM Driver installation process completed” appears, press “Enter” to complete the
driver installation.
6. Plug in the USB PRO Series Adapter to the USB port of your computer. Windows will finish installing the driver
files.
Check Installation
You can now verify the installation has been completed successfully by looking under Device Manager of the System
Properties screen. (Go there by Start-Setting- Control Panel-System Properties-Hardware-Device Manager.
The device should have installed as a "USB Serial Port (COMx)" attached to "USB Serial Converter (A/B)".
Change COM Port Properties & COM Port Number
This feature is particularly useful for programs, such as HyperTerminal, which only work with COM1 through COM4.
Please ensure that you do not change the COM Port Number already in use.

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To change the virtual COM port properties:
•Select the "USB Serial Port"
•Click “Properties”.
•Select "Port Setting" and “Advanced”.
•Click the drop down arrow on COM Port Number, and scroll to the required COM port. Select "OK".
•Return to the Device Manager Screen. You will see that the USB Serial Port installation has been changed to the
new COM Port Number.
Uninstalling Windows 2003 / XP / 2000 Drivers
Please proceed with the following steps to uninstall the 2003/XP/2000 driver:
1. Insert the “USB COM Series Driver and Utility” CD into your CD-ROM.
2. The “USB COM Series Driver and Utility CD” dialog box appears.
3. Under “Driver Uninstalling”, double click “Windows 2003, XP, 2000 driver uninstall” to uninstall the device
driver.
4. When following dialog box appears, double click “Clean System” to uninstall the 2003/XP/2000 drivers.
5. You need to disconnect all USB to serial Adapters from your PC, when the message below appears. Double click
“OK” to start uninstalling Windows 2003/XP/2000 USB to Serial drivers.
6. Double click “Yes” to confirm it.

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7. Click “No” to proceed.
8. When the message “Status: System clean completed” appears, double click “Exit” to complete the USB to serial
drivers uninstall.
9. Press “Start” button and select “Control Panel”.
10. Open the Add or Remove program.

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11. Remove the first “Windows Driver Package – FTDI CDM Driver Package (…)”.
12. Click “Chang/Remove” and “Yes” to remove the first Windows Driver Package.
13. Remove the second “Windows Driver Package – FTDI CDM Driver Package (…)”.
14. Click “Chang/Remove” and “Yes” to remove the second Windows Driver Package.
15. Reboot the computer to complete the driver uninstall.
Uninstalling Windows 7 or Vista Drivers
Windows 7 and Vista have many new security features. You need to proceed with the following steps to uninstall the
Vista driver:
1. The USB to serial devices must connect to the PC.
2. Press “Start” button and select “Control Panel”.
3. Select “Classic View” from the top left hand corner and then “System” from the list.
4. Select “Device Manager” from the top left hand corner.

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5. Locate your Device under the Ports (COM & LTP) section and right click on it to bring up the menu shown.
6. Select uninstall and be sure to click the box for “Delete the driver software for this device” in the next window
and press “OK”.

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Note: If you have more than one USB Serial Port (COMx) installed in your PC, you need to repeat from step 5 to step 6 to
delete the driver software for each port.
7. Locate your Device under the Universal Serial Bus Controllers section, and right click on it to bring up the menu
shown.

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8. Select uninstall and be sure to click the box for “Delete the driver software for this device” in the next window
and press “OK”.
Note: If you have more than one USB Serial Converter installed in your PC, you need to repeat step 7 and step 8 to
delete the driver software for all devices.
Hardware Configuration
You can configure the operation mode of serial ports, enable/disable the Tx ,Rx termination resistors, enable/disable Tx,
Rx BIASing resistors either via serial console port or by the provided GUI (Graphic User Interface) configuration utility
program (UsbComCfg).
NOTE: You must finish the driver and hardware installation first, before proceeding to hardware configuration. The serial
console port and hardware configuration utility program need to work with the first serial port of the USB PRO series of
Industrial I/O Adapters.
Configure Hardware via Serial Console port:
From the “Device Manager” of Windows, find the first serial port number of your USBG-COM-PRO Industrial I/O Adapter
(please refer to section “Check Installation”). Open this serial port with any terminal program (HyperTerminal, or other
terminal emulator program)

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Select:
•38400 bps
•8 Bit
•No Parity
•1 stop bit
•Flow control: none for serial console port.
(Note: the default flow control setting of HyperTerminal is “hardware”, you need to change to “none” for proper
operation).
After opening terminal program for serial console port, you must press the CONFIG button and hold for two seconds
until the blue LED will light. Following is an example of the message that will appear, if the product is an USB2-8COM
PRO.
USB2-8COM PRO v1: please press <ENTER> to activate the menu
Hardware Configuration Main Menu
Press <Enter> to activate the hardware configuration main menu.
The hardware configuration main menu messages are:
0 - Exit
----------------------------------------------
1 - Show all port configurations
2 - Change port configurations
3 - Default port configurations
4 - Save port configurations
----------------------------------------------
5 - Show configuration file
6 - Upload configuration file
Press <0> to exit the hardware configuration main menu and the blue LED will change to dark.
Press <5> to show the hardware configuration file (decimal values)
Presses <6> to upload the hardware configuration file (decimal values)
Press <1> to show all port hardware configurations, the message are following:
Port 1: RS232
Port 2: RS422 (BIAS, TxTerm, RxTerm)
Port 3: RS485 auto, 2-wire with Echo (none)
Port 4: RS485 by RTS, 2-wire no Echo (BIAS, TxTerm)
Port 1: RS232
Port 1 is working in RS-232 mode.
Port 2: RS422 (BIAS, TxTerm, RxTerm)

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Port 2 is working in RS-422 mode. BIASing resistor and Tx , Rx termination resistors are enabled.
Port 3: RS485 auto, 2-wire with Echo (none)
Port 3 is working in RS-485 half duplex mode with automatic data receive and transmit control. BIASing resistors and
termination resistors are disabled.
Port 4: RS485 by RTS, 2-wire no Echo (BIAS, TxTerm)
Port 4 is working in RS-485 half duplex mode. BIASing resistors and Tx termination resistors are enabled. The data
receive and transmit control is by RTS signal.
Press <3> to set all ports in default configurations to RS-232 mode.
After press <3> to set all ports to default configurations, you must press <4> to save default port configurations data into
EEPROM.
Press <4> to save all configurations data into EEPROM. When the save operation is finished, the screen will show:
OK - values were written to the EEPROM.
Change Port Configuration Menu
Press <2> to change port configurations menu, the message are:
0 - Back
---------------
1 - Port 1
2 - Port 2
.
.
---------------
x - All Ports
If the adapter is 8-port version, (USB2-8COM PRO), “x” is 9.
Press <0> to return to hardware configuration main menu.
Press <x> to set all the ports with same hardware configuration.
Port Setting Menu.
Press <1/2/3…> to set the port-1, port-2, port-3, etc.
Hardware configuration and port setting menu options include the following:
---------------------------------------------------
0 - Back
---------------------------------------------------
1 - RS485 by RTS, 4-wire
2 - RS485 by RTS, 2-wire no Echo
3 - RS485 by RTS, 2-wire with Echo
4 - RS485 auto, 4-wire