LGB 55045 decoder

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kim

kim

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That should read decoder reader, anyway following on from the death of my old XP desktop I have duly bought a very cheap XP laptop that has turned out to be excellent value. The machine has been loaded up with the necessary software and drivers as supplied by Mark and all 3 com ports work. My problem is that when I go through the options menu and set the com value the programme menu keeps telling me that it can't find the 55045 in any com port and when the programme page appears it states that the com setting is 0 and I can change this in the options menu. I have the com set at 3 as it doesn't recognise other numbers and the 5045 appears to be in order, red indicator light is on. Has the 55045 packed up? What are your thoughts? Has anybody not that far from sunny Blackpool got a unit I can test on my laptop?
Cheers,
Kim
 
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kim said:
That should read decoder reader, anyway following on from the death of my old XP desktop I have duly bought a very cheap XP laptop that has turned out to be excellent value. The machine has been loaded up with the necessary software and drivers as supplied by Mark and all 3 com ports work. My problem is that when I go through the options menu and set the com value the programme menu keeps telling me that it can't find the 55045 in any com port and when the programme page appears it states that the com setting is 0 and I can change this in the options menu. I have the com set at 3 as it doesn't recognise other numbers and the 5045 appears to be in order, red indicator light is on. Has the 55045 packed up? What are your thoughts? Has anybody not that far from sunny Blackpool got a unit I can test on my laptop?
Cheers,
Kim
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It may be something in the software on the laptop. I have used Stellwerks Easy with my 55045 without much trouble for years. On the other hand, when I tried to use Stellwerks with my Massoth 1200Z, which has a programming track mode, it didn't work. I found out some time later that this may have been because Stellworks works with the 55045 in "construction mode" but with the 1200Z in "processing mode". There is no apparent reason for this. Also, you had to specifically set the software to LGB MTS for the 55045, not Massoth DIMAX. I haven't got round to using the 1200Z on the programming track, since I was informed of this difference. While this is probably not the exact cause of your problem, it may be some other setting in your software that .is required specifically for the 55045 - ie not a problem with the 55045 itself.
 
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Yes, that makes sense. The unit worked fine on COM 4 on my old pc so I thought it was the usb driver on this replacement, but on checking I have the lgb driver and another I downloaded. I shall look at Stellwerks.
Cheers,
Kim
 
Interesting, it is a laptop, and you say all 3 com ports work.... did you add some extra hardware to the laptop?

I have seen only one laptop that had 2 external com ports and that was a $10k military grade unit. Most have at most one external com port.

1. do you have any extra hardware to add a com port?
2. how many built in com ports are there?
3. how did you figure out the com port number?
4. does the computer have a built in modem?

Greg
 
Hi Greg,
The lap top is a Levovo T60, no extra hardware added and it only cost me £79. The mouse is via USB and it works in all 3 ports, when I select com port 3 it is the only com port that the lgb software doesn't reject straight away and yes, there is a built in modem. I suspect I need to try another 55045 in my laptop or my 55045 in another lap/desk top.
Cheers,
Kim
 
Just a thought Greg, I should be saying there are 3 USB ports, the lgb software accepts COM port 3 but says to unplug from the sub and plug back in - done this on all 3 USB ports - and in the programming section shows the COM port at zero.
Kim
 
Have you the correct drivers for the USB to Serial lead you are using?

Go into Device Manager and check the allocated COM port for your connection.

Also, try using the Massoth software that I provided a link to as this will communicate with the 55045. When you configure the device you want to use, it will only show you the available configured COM ports.
 
As I understand it, the 55045 is a device with a true, 9 pin, serial interface. I assume yours looks like this.

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Your laptop has 3 USB ports.

To connect the two you must be using a physical USB to Serial "dongle".... usually a short cable that has usb on one end, the 9 pin serial connector on the other, and somewhere in between there is a tiny circuit board with an integrated circuit to do the conversion.

So, your computer sees the USB and it needs a driver to make it "look like" the old style serial port.

I'm asking about this cable, which was not manufactured by LGB: whose do you have and like Mark said, do you have the right drivers for this device.

You are running XP, so there are no built in drivers in XP to support this device, you must load the correct driver for the device itself, and an XP version of the driver too.

Greg
 
Hi Mark, Greg,
The USB to serial is a Nikkai and I found the disc for it, put it into the pc and the darn thing is for Windows 98 only! Will I still be able to buy one for XP?
I have gone into the Massoth programme and in the left hand column the symbol for 55045 is not highlighted.
Still trying to find device manager!
Cheers,
Kim
 
Cheers Arthur, Mark, Greg, NCS,
Pleased to report that I found my way into device manager, discovered it is working on COM 4 and everything is working great. Cheers lads, forum works again!
Kim
 
Yes, luckily the world seems to have standardized on the PL2303 chipset, although there are clones out there that do not work well.

Great news, you now have a com port that you can use... by the way, you will probably find that COM3 exists, and that is the internal modem, which traditionally has been on a serial port.

(a bit of computer trivia, the first external com port available is normally com2 or 4, because the internal one is com1 or 3, so the modem would be a com port one "lower" than your external device. This way the modem would have higher priority than whatever external device you used... computers used to be very slow and not all com/serial ports had buffering... so if you had a serial mouse moving it a lot could drop characters in your modem dialup)

Greg
 
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