NMEA to USB

[richardhula]

Originally Posted by sded

You might also check out the Edgeports, which are widely used and regularly available on eBay as well. I use a 4 port version and it has been very reliable. Tested it against Windows 7x64 and it found and installed drivers; I have been using it for some time with Vista and XP.

Interesting point that. I have been using an Edgeport/4 with the earlier chipset for several years now. The latest Vista drivers (Win 7 not out yet) here Drivers - Edgeport (RS-232, Compact) USB - Technical Support - Digi International install the base drivers fine on Windows 7 x86 or x64, but I have found you need to manually install the port drivers one by one through Device Manager by pointing to the driver location.

[sded]

I just plugged the (old) 4 port Edgeport into a new Windows 7x64 laptop, and it went out and found the drivers on the internet, installed all the ports, plus the Edgeport utility. Ignoring vendors works well with Windows 7, and even Vista. I have installed hardware several times with "Found new hardware" drivers that the vendor claimed didn't exist.

[PatrickT]

The US globalsat gps puck is cheap and has a USB connection. Why use up another .7 amps?
BU-353 less than $40.

[ActisenseTech]

Another consideration when using USB to RS232 converters, as well as any NMEA USB device, is the serial mouse issue in windows.
NMEA 0183 data can be mis-interpreted as a serial mouse data. If this happens your mouse cursor will jump around the screen wildly and random mouse clicks will occur.
Some drivers will have this feature turned off whilst others not. It is probably quite hard to find this out from the vendor but fear not there is a solution. In device manager the offending USB device will be shown up here "Mice and other pointing devices" listed as "Microsoft Serial Ball Point"right click it and select disable.

USB-to-serial adapters are not all created equally. If you buy one that is not Windows Logo Certified for your particular OS version, you may save $5. But those that are logo certified and listed on the Microsoft Hardware Qualification List (HCL) for the OS have been extensively tested and are known to work most if not all of the time.

I have a lot of experience using a well known brand of USB chips. I have to modify the drivers inf file to remove the serial mouse issue I previously mentioned. This modification removes the certification even though this does not effect the operation of the device in a way that is damaging to windows.
If a manufacturer uses a USB chip but wants to have it uniquely identified they have to change the PID of the chip and modify the drivers for this. This also removes the certification, to recertify is expensive and pointless in this situation as the driver is already proved, that gives you your $5 saving.
Another thing to consider is certified drivers can still cause BSOD's as I have witnessed, have you ever read the release notes for USB driver updates that mention BSOD fixes?
Certainly though they are not all created equal, I have seen many that are poor quality and don't stand up to pressure especially now AIS comes in with 38400 baud.

[AnchorageGuy]

Originally Posted by ActisenseTech

Another consideration when using USB to RS232 converters, as well as any NMEA USB device, is the serial mouse issue in windows.
NMEA 0183 data can be mis-interpreted as a serial mouse data. If this happens your mouse cursor will jump around the screen wildly and random mouse clicks will occur.
Some drivers will have this feature turned off whilst others not. It is probably quite hard to find this out from the vendor but fear not there is a solution. In device manager the offending USB device will be shown up here "Mice and other pointing devices" listed as "Microsoft Serial Ball Point"right click it and select disable.
.

The problem with this solution is that when the courser goes wild you can not control the computer enough to get into device manager to disable anything without unplugging the device, which makes it disappear from device manager. At least that has been my experience. But there is a small program called plug and play blocker which fixes the issue and allows everything to work as advertised. WG