Com Port Settings for Barcode Scanner?

[ScottofTexas]

I have a symbol LS4004i scanner and trying to use it with Test Stand 1.0 in a Windows XP environment. The scanner happily inputs correctly in Hyperterminal, but not in the Test Stand window. I was told by Symbol customer support that NI should have their own settings to recommend for: Baud/Data Bit/Parity/Stop Bit/Flow Control since default values do not work.
Thanks for your help!

[Ray.R]

Hi,

I had used the Symbol barcode scanner which was connected to the serial port a while ago. I have switched to keyboard emulator types because they can be used directly with TestStand.

However, for the serial poer scanners, I wrote a LV vi which read the serial port. Creating a vi (or CVI /C dll) allowed me to implement parsing and exception handling capabilities which would have been challenging for TestStand. I have never implemented a feature in TestStand which could directly read the serial port. I am not sure if it can be done or not...

-JLV-

[Dennis_Knutson]

What do you mean TestStand window? There was no TestStand step type for serial port communication in version 1.0. You would need to write some code in order to use a serial port scanner. If you don't want to write any code, buy a wedge type scanner like JLV mentions.

[ScottofTexas]

Thank you both for your follow-ups. You confirmed my fears that this device probably will not serve my needs.

[Ray.R]

It might be okay..
The only thing is that you need to create an interface which communicate with the serial port.

I am now hooked on the wedge types.. So much easier... there is nothing to do...
(Just don't tell my boss 😉 )

JLV

[ryank]

By the way, the Symbol customer support isn't giving you very good information. Serial settings, such as Baud/Data bits/etc. just need to match between the communication software and the device. In most cases, this means that the device, not the software, determines the settings (since pretty much all serial communication software allows you to easily configure the settings). Therefore, there are definitely no NI reccomended settings.

The device might work for you, but you need to write some code to communicate with it. Depending on the complexity of the task and the command set of the device this might be really easy, or very hard.

Regards,
Ryan K.