Changing from serial input to usb

[Zrobitaille]

Hi, totally new here, just looking for a little advice. I am using an ultrasonic thickness gauge to read wall thickness on a rotating tube and using LabVIEW to create a realtime graph of this data. The program was made for LabVIEW 5.1 and uses a serial port for it's input. The thickness gauge has a USB output but I do not know how to change the input in LabVIEW to pick up this same data. Do we need a new program written or is editing what we have an easy solution? Willing to pay for work needed as newer computers and serial port compatibility is becoming difficult.

[crossrulz]

Many devices will use a Virtual Serial Port over the USB connection.  So you would just need to point to the COM port that the devices shows up as.

[ASTDan]

You can get a USB to serial converter.  I have used these all the time to talk to serial devices with a DB9 connector

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Converter-Prolific-Chipset-CB-DB9P/dp/B00IDSM6BW/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1F6D...

[RTSLVU]

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@ASTDan wrote:

You can get a USB to serial converter.  I have used these all the time to talk to serial devices with a DB9 connector

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Converter-Prolific-Chipset-CB-DB9P/dp/B00IDSM6BW/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1F6D...

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I suggest you avoid USB-Serial adaptors with the Prolific chipset. There are way too many counterfeit Prolific chips "in the wild" and the Prolific drivers will disable the device or otherwise malfunction. 

Warning Notice: (From Prolific website)
Please be warned that counterfeit (fake) PL-2303HX (Chip Rev A) USB to Serial Controller ICs using Prolific's trademark logo, brandname, and device drivers, were being sold in the China market. Counterfeit IC products show exactly the same outside chip markings but generally are of poor quality and causes Windows driver compatibility issues

I have ran into this far too many times over the course of the last decade to ever use a Prolific device regardless of who manufactured it.

I suggest these Chipi-X10 FTDI based USB-Serial adaptors actually manufactured my FTDI

[Zrobitaille]

The device has USB output. Looking to change the vi to read from the USB port. And also possibly update it to run on a newer version of LabVIEW as it's too old for the new version to convert.

[JimB.]

Do you have documentation for the device? Without knowing how it presents itself to the operating system, it's not possible to say how to "read from USB."

As crossrulz pointed out, some devices will use a virtual serial port when connected by USB. If that is the case, it may be as simple as plugging it in and selecting the appropriate COM port.

[Zrobitaille]

Could you tell me what to look for in the documentation? The device is an Olympus 38dl plus. I've got the manuals and such but don't see much more than it has rs232/serial output and USB output. Sorry for the ignorance, just trying to make some compatibly issues go away. I read today they also have an add of for it to transmit wirelessly, so I'm guessing that would also run to some sort of virtual com port. I'll mess with it more on Monday and try that. I've got copies of the manuals so if anyone can tell me what sort of info I need on the usb output to be able to put that in the vi I can look. Thanks for all of your suggestions and patience.

[JÞB]

First, the S in Universal Serial Bus does stand for Serial. 

Simply connect the device to a USB port on your computer should allow it to plug and play (it may need a hardware driver)Available here 

The only trouble I forsee is that you want to move from LabVIEW 5.1.

That version predates stable implementations of VISA ( the VISA Consortium hadn't yet really agreed on a lot)  so, it is almost assuredly going to be better off rewriting the whole software driver in a later version.

I have offered that service in the past and you could probably afford me. I'm a lot cheaper than learning 20 versions of LabVIEW yourself for a 1 off source upgrade.  Private Message me.