GRE programming cable, homemade?

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Oldglide

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Can you use a generic USB to serial convertor, clip one end of the serial cable and connect an 1/8" mini stereo plug and get it to work for programming a GRE scanner? It is only 3 connections. I'm guessing data send, data receive and ground, of course you would have to know the pin assignment.
 

DonS

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Presuming "GRE scanner" refers to either the PSR-300 or PSR-500 families (including their RS PRO-xxx equivalents)...

No. The signal levels and polarity will be wrong.
 

gmclam

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GRE serial cable

Can you use a generic USB to serial convertor, clip one end of the serial cable and connect an 1/8" mini stereo plug and get it to work for programming a GRE scanner?
No.

It is only 3 connections. I'm guessing data send, data receive and ground, of course you would have to know the pin assignment.
Well your guess is correct here. You'd need to be specific about the scanner you are trying to program. Of all the GREs I have, the PSR-300 is configured a little differently. Also, the signals from/to the PRO-92 are 5 volt while the newer scanners are 3.3 volt.

I made my own cable, but it was not as simple as one would think. I used a USB to COM converter (or just plug in to a COM port on PCs that have one). Then I used an IC which is a signal level converter and several discrete components.

I posted a schematic of the original COM cable here in another thread; but again a lot depends on the exact scanner you want to program.
 

torontokris

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Good to save cash but in this case get the 20-047 for $32 from radio shack.
Will work with a bunch of different rs/gre scanners
 

Oldglide

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Yeah, no work

I tried all my tricks and no luck, obviously some sort of proprietary code. I got it to send but no echo back.
 

DonS

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firetrux745 said:
But i hear that the radio scack interface wont work with vista. Is this just a rumor ?

The CD included with RadioShack's cable (20-047) may not have current drivers for Vista or Windows 7. Otherwise, after obtaining the correct drivers from GRE or FTDI, the cable works fine on those operating systems.

Oldglide said:
I tried all my tricks and no luck, obviously some sort of proprietary code. I got it to send but no echo back.

Are you still referring to the home-brew cable described in the first post? If so, that just won't work. There's no "proprietary code" anywhere (certainly not in the GRE/RS cable). The problem is signal level and polarity.
 

omni

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DCA-510 (usb siemens date cable) cable works with PSR-400 Scanner
grekompsr400kabelis.jpg
 
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