Just a suggestion about the upgrade kit at the store
I know that the new kits are coming soon, I think it would be an interesting option to be able to buy a bundle with the right cables. People are having random issues with cables they bought from sites (a lot of people are buying that mono price cable, but i’ve read posts with people buying them at radioshack, etc)..
So have some sort of optional bundle with the cable could be an interesting option. For people not in the United States, it would also be even more interesting simply for the fact that sometime, packages are held at customs for reasons while others makes it without problems. I buy lots of techstuff online, and it happened quite a few times that I would receive a piece of hardware one day, but I would end up having to wait 2-3 days (if not more :eek for that oh so important cable/additional part to come in from another site.
funnily enough, i was just about to post something like this…
I’m in the UK - last time, i ordered some black knobs and the black SE overlay it with fast track delivery it cost me almost $90 (in bristish money, just over £45) - customs held it and made me pay $60 to release it.
I’m holding out for the firmware kit (that was due out at the end of January), if bundled with a connector wire - is there anyway this item could be declared as a personal gift? rather than a purchase just so I avoid paying almost the same price again just to pick it up?
yes, buying a USB cable will double my costs, too but I unterstand that of course, and hope I’ll manage to ugrade the firmware with such a cable while being booted into windows. One question: does that matter which windows version you are running? Because for now, I have only Vista Pro (64bit) on my bootcamp partition. Does that work with that Version, too? Another option could be trying in XP while running VMWare.
It will probably work on Vista 64, hard to say for sure though, the upgrade software utility is provided ‘unsuported’ by Renasas so they while they release updates to try and fix bugs etc they dont have any real motivation to ensure reliable operation over all OS, and serial hardwware etc
usb aside… i just wanted to know on my next order - could the item be declared as a gift, just so customs dont charge me half through the nose to recieve me wonderful djtechtool gifts?
we can work with people on customs charges- in terms of selling a reliable USB to serial cable? Thats a tough call- did anyone actually find one?
Personally I am asking everyone to just use serial to serial- because it works perfectly every time with no strange behavior. Anything else is impossible to support without more feedback and help from the community.
Ean, I think you overestimate the failure rate of the usb-rs232 cables. I assume that most of your customers upgraded via adapter because most of them are using notebooks. It’s not that hard to find a working adapter. I picked up the cheapest one and had no problems (apart from driver issues). Most of them are based on the same chip anyway.
Driver issues ARE a problem. One of the most common USB/RS232 chipsets is made by Prolific, and it is hit and miss with this company. They’ve also had very documented issues with other i/o bridges, like their Firewire, USB boards, drivers, firmware, etc.
If you bundle a 3rd party cable that may or may not work out of the box, you’re only asking for trouble in terms of people coming to you for support of this cable/drivers that you didn’t make.
Almost every problem we have experianced with these are becuase of the USB to serial cables. They introduce 2 variables which can be very hard to nail down:
the com port
the drivers
I personally had trouble with them as well and had very irregualr luck but with a serial to serial it works perfectly, every single time without a hitch.
That PCMCIA card sounds like a good option as well but the com port might still be a problem.
That being said, finding one USB to serial that works, figuring it out and selling that seems to be a reasonable alternative. We can look into it.
for that oh so important cable/additional part to come in from another site.
but I unterstand that of course, and hope I’ll manage to ugrade the firmware with such a cable while being booted into windows. One question: does that matter which windows version you are running? Because for now, I have only Vista Pro (64bit) on my bootcamp partition. Does that work with that Version, too? Another option could be trying in XP while running VMWare.