Delphi 7 Serial Port Example Series Dataloggers And

All data loggers with PakBus operating systems have a default PakBus address of 1.

This article looks at six of the most common problems and explains how you can easily resolve them.

To ensure your data logger is getting the power it needs, make sure your power supply is not switched off.

Some data logger models make this easy to do by having a light on them that flashes when they are active.

Even if your data logger doesnt have this feature, you can still use a voltmeter to check the voltage at the power input.

For example, some data loggers have two types of ports, and it is important to use the correct cabling for the one you are connected to.

On Campbell Scientific data loggers, there are two types of 9-pin connectors: CS IO and RS-232.

With RS-232, you can either connect a straight-through cable between the RS-232 port on the PC and the RS-232 port on the data logger, or you can use a USB to RS-232 cable.

If you are connecting to a CS IO port, you must also use an RS-232 to CS IO converter, such as the SC32B Optically Isolated RS-232 Interface.

Delphi 7 Serial Port Example Series Dataloggers And

For example, CR200-series dataloggers and CR10X dataloggers are always 9600 baud.

CR1000 and similar data loggers can handle baud rates up to 115200.

The CR1000 defaults to a baud rate of -115200, which means 115200 with autobaud enabled.

The autobaud option tries to adjust the baud rate automatically to match the PC.

Although autobaud is reliable at adjusting down the baud rate, it does have trouble adjusting up from 9600 to 115200.

So, if someone else connects to your CR1000 at 9600 baud, you may have trouble connecting at 115200.

After you successfully connect, you can change the baud rate setting for the serial port on the data logger.

This was rarely a problem on older computers with a built-in serial port because the port was almost always COM1 and didnt change.

These days, however, most of us use USB to RS-232 cables, and Windows assigns a COM number to the cable.

It is common for Windows to assign a different COM port number to the cable depending on which USB port you plug it into.

Depending on the driver, however, you may be able to specify the port number to use.

Invalid COM port selection is one of the most common communication problems.

When a piece of software has a COM port open, Windows prevents all other software from accessing it.

You will receive an Access is denied error (Figure 3) when attempting to use an already open COM port.

Close other software that may be using the port, and try again.