Hi Charlie,
Seasons Greetings!
Is this the affable Charlie Warren of Amateur Astronomy Magazine who was down here for the OzSky event in 2009?
I hope you have been keeping well.
cbwarren wrote:My issue might simply be the connection. I am using a standard data cable to serial adapter.
In all probability, that will be your problem.
There is no such thing as a "standard data cable to serial adapter". There is no industry standard.
The RJ socket pinouts on the Argo Navis serial port and the set of connections inside the D-connector are custom designed by us.
They were carefully chosen to mininize the chance of damage should a user accidentally plug a serial cable into an encoder port.
Though serial cables for other devices may look similar, chances of them being wired the same way are small.
There are something like 24 different permutations on the RJ plug alone. Then the RJ plugs at either end can be wired in two different orientations.
Then the multiplicity of possible connections from the RJ socket at the back of the D-connector to the D-connector pins makes the chance of plugging in
some arbitrary cable and it working impossibly slim.
In fact one has to be careful. If one uses the wrong serial cable, it can cause a short, possibly damaging the unit and/or PC.
What you want to make sure you have is the genuine Argo Navis Serial Cable :-
https://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au/ser_cbl_describe.html
These can be ordered online from here :-
https://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au/purchase.html
If you need frther assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us at
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au