EEVblog Electronics Community Forum

Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: Fraser on July 29, 2014, 07:38:33 pm

Title: RS232 command strings using a USB or wireless Keyboard !
Post by: Fraser on July 29, 2014, 07:38:33 pm

I have been hunting around for an easy way to send RS232 command strings to my thermal imaging cameras. I found some programmable keypads that can store command strings that are associated with a specific key-press. These come from Genovation but didn't meet my needs fully so I kept looking.

Tonight I found the web site of Versalent:

http://www.versalent.biz/wlkeyboard.htm (http://www.versalent.biz/wlkeyboard.htm)

They sell an adapter that accepts USB wired and wireless keyboard key inputs and translates them into plain RS232 serial ascii or a command string of up to 10 characters per key. Its easy to program so you can basically set up the RS232 'word' that each keyboard key generates and the serial data configuration.

So in my case, I can set the arrow keys to send the up, down, left and right joystick commands to my PM695 TIC. With a normal PC keyboard I can send every command that the FLIR PM series make available to the user   :)

For the money I thought it worth a try so I have ordered one. A reasonable cost for such a niche product. They also do PS2 keyboard to RS232 serial adapters as well.