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Thanks. I'll try that.

I could see a return signal now but as soon as I put the slightest load on it it went to crap. Even a finger on the probe tip changed the wave shape. Odd.

I feel like swearing! All it needed was +5V on pin 4 (DTR Data Terminal Ready) and away it went. The solar reg was waiting for this signal before sending a reply. It even works fine with the serin and serout commands at 16m. I'm assuming that the signal I saw was some type of leakage from the...

The D connector on the TTL to 232 is female and the D connector on the solar reg is female too so when I use a standard 9 pin lead with a male on one end and a female on the other I end up with two females at the breadboard. I then jumper the leads together via wire links with the pins from a...

Sorry I didn't explain that very well. The TTL to 232 converter is plugged into the breadboard and I connect to the solar reg via the 9 pin D connector on the top of the converter. This problem is beginning to annoy me now. The solar reg also has an EIA-485 connection so I might order a TTL to...

Well yes. I'm beginning to wonder if the little TTL to 232 converters that I purchased are working correctly. They seem to be a MAX232 chip on a board with female 9 pin on the top and 4 header type pins on the bottom. Bought two of these and they both do the same thing.

Top screen shot is solar reg 232 output connected to scope only. Once I connect it to the MAX232 chip the signal drops down to what you see on the second screen shot. Cable is about 3ft long.

Well. After much angst and swapping everything I discovered that the picaxe chip was part of the problem. Put in a 08m2 and now I'm receiving a message back from the solar reg. BUT... with the return signal connected to the scope only it all looks good. Screen shot 1 However, once I connect...

I've added that in but still no reply. I'm going to try to add some scope screen shots to this message as they're quite informative. The first is the output on the USB to 232 device with the data request string 1,3,0,50,0,1,37,197. Actually typed it in in hex but you get the idea. The whole...

Hi Flenser. Thanks for the info about start / stop bits. Thank goodness the Picaxe takes care of those. Yes, you're correct about the need to get a response from the solar reg first. I've dug out the manual for the scope so will learn how to record a screen shot again. The solar reg is a...

Sorry forgot to mention that I tried serout at 32 but no joy. It sends a nice clear data train but no response from the solar reg. The oscilloscope has a record function so I'll try to remember how to use it and compare the two RS232 outputs to see if there's a difference.

Well I'm still stumped. Its getting serious now. Ive connected the oscilloscope up and have looked at the two different signals. The data from the USB to RS232 converter looks almost the same as what's coming out of my Picaxe via the TTL to RS232 converter - a MAX232 on a board with a nine pin D...

Thanks a lot for all those sugestions. I'll get back onto it this morning and let you know how it goes.

Hi Flenser. Thanks for the speedy responce. Code below - I hope. Main: pause 2000 low C.0 low C.1 low B.0 low B.1 low B.2 low B.3 low B.4 low B.5 setfreq m8 pause 200 'serout...

Hello. I've run out of ideas to get my current project running and hope someone else might be able to give me some ideas. Im fairly familiar with the Picaxe system and don't usually have this level of frustration. The project - I need to retrieve a single data byte from a solar regulator to keep...