CPS, CP200, and RIBLess Cable Issues

[pamsauto]

I am a newbie needing some guidance.

I have a CP200 Radio, CPS ver R05.07, and this RIBLess cable http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=007.

I cannot get CPS to read from the radio. Here is what I am doing. CPS is running in Windows XP SP2, RIBless USB cable is plugged in and shows to be com port 4 in the device manager and the cable is plugged into the radio in the MIC port.

I have tried com port settings of 9600,8,n,1 no flow control and 9600,7,e,1 no flow control.

I get the error #512 Unable to read. Check to see if radio is connected, radio is powered on and COM port setting is correct.

The radio is on, and the Port setting in CPS under Preferences is set to COM4.

What is the correct setting for the com port baud rate and such, or is this most likely not the issue?

Thanks, Pat

[firefighter2000]

I just purchased this EXACT cable from the EXACT same person and am having the EXACT same problem. Asked the seller and he said to make sure the com port was set to COM1 on both the computer and the RSS. Im using the same version of software & all too. Did that and still will not read the radio. I've tried two different CP200's and two different PR400's. NOTHING. Anyone help us out?
Thanks
Craig

[Al]

Would you tell us *exactly* how you changed the comm port setting on the PC to comm 1? Did you change it using the advanced tab in device manager if you're using windows XP?

[HLA]

that's not just a ribless cable, it's a usb cable & that's your whole problem, don't use any usb cable that isn't an oem motorola cable. use a real cable and rib and it will work the first time. motorola radios & cps DO NOT LIKE USB for some reason. it isn't significant to just this series of radios and cps, it's been the same with all of them. some of the usb to serial adpators have worked but they are not reliable and risk vs. reward, it's not worth saving a couple dollars on a cable if it's gonna brick your radio and give you all of the headaches you are describing. if you run a search on here you will find that most of the searches that contain the word usb will come up with similar problems.

[firefighter2000]

Would you tell us *exactly* how you changed the comm port setting on the PC to comm 1? Did you change it using the advanced tab in device manager if you're using windows XP?

Yes... did that... Did the same thing. I actually had a similar problem with a USB cable for an M1225, and changed and bought a serial cable (and used a USB converter cable) and it worked. Would that work? I also have a serial cable for my XTS3k (and use a USB converter cable) and it works fine. Im thinking I may try & get the serial cable & try that.
Craig

[HLA]

all i have to say is you're playing with fire and you'll learn after you have to spend another $500 on a new radio or at least $200 to flat rate it into the depot for repair. and in your description of what's wrong with it make shure you add that you used a usb cable that somebody on ebay told you will work.

[firefighter2000]

Radio still works fine... all four of them.... Just wont read them. The XTS3k, and all the m1225's i've programmed work fine using the serial cable with a usb to serial converter. Never a problem. Im going to try that.
Thanks
Craig

[formula1976]

that's not just a ribless cable, it's a usb cable & that's your whole problem, don't use any usb cable that isn't an oem motorola cable. use a real cable and rib and it will work the first time. motorola radios & cps DO NOT LIKE USB for some reason. it isn't significant to just this series of radios and cps, it's been the same with all of them. some of the usb to serial adpators have worked but they are not reliable and risk vs. reward, it's not worth saving a couple dollars on a cable if it's gonna brick your radio and give you all of the headaches you are describing. if you run a search on here you will find that most of the searches that contain the word usb will come up with similar problems.

This is not really true. The usb interface just replaces the RIB BOX paralel port interface.
If you are having issues with it it could be the cable or just your radio that is bad.
Also you cannot flash a radio with a UUSB cable for some reason you still need to use the old setup for that (RIB BOX, CABLE AND FLASH ADAPTER).
Let me know if I can be of any help.

Regards

[wavetar]

This is not really true.

Actually, it is. Unlike RS-232 which adheres to a standard, and USB 1.x/2.0 which also does, converters have no 'standard' to follow, and the design of them varies widely. As do the software drivers to make them work under Windows. Some emulate the proper UARTS, others don't.

Some very well explained details can be found here:

http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/info/RS-232-usb.html

Also you cannot flash a radio with a UUSB cable for some reason you still need to use the old setup for that (RIB BOX, CABLE AND FLASH ADAPTER).

This is because there is a lot more data flowing back & forth during a firmware upgrade, thus the timings & whatnot become a lot more important.

Some people have had good success with various USB converters, many others haven't. I've personally seen radios work with them, and others get corrupted by them. I always recommend either a true serial card for a desktop, or a PCMCIA serial card for a laptop (or a docking station with serial port).

Todd

[escomm]

From looking at the auction, it looks like the USB cable need a special driver. Has OP downloaded and installed it?

[Ben]

Looks like Polaris doesn't sell the cable for programming the CP200 with a RIB any more so I'm looking to make a cable. Can anybody tell me the size of the plug to make the cable?

[elesjuan]

I bought a RIB from RadioStew (http://www.radiostew.com/therib.php) and tested it on my maxtrac bench unit, communication worked perfectly fine using MAXTRAC RSS on an OLD Pentium 75mhz Toshiba notebook PC running Windows 95 but booted into DOS.

Using what I found in the Batwing information I made myself a cable using a 2.5mm stereo headphone plug, some cable and a DB-25F.



Thats the EXACT cable I built. Double checked to make sure my connections were proper, and plugged it into my radio. The radio is a Motorola CP200 4 channel. Using both that Pentium 75mhz computer along with a Pentium 4 2.8ghz notebook computer with built in RS-232 port. After plugging the cable into the radio and attempting to connect with the CPS Software I get the same problem, error 768 Unable to Read. Wants me to verify radio is powered on and COM port is correctly set. On all computers I checked the serial communication, works perfectly. With the radio plugged in, powered on, RIB powered on, the error takes several seconds to come back. Unhook it all and the same error comes back immediately.

Noticed that I had an issue and the +5 volt data bus on my 2.5mm stereo connector came loose and touched the TIP of the connector. Would +5 volts going into the TIP of that connector damage the data bus inside the radio? Soldered it very firmly and bent the tip's terminal out of the way, powered everything off and tried again. Still no connection on any computer I can hook this thing to, but if I plug my Maxtrac mobile in, it connects right away.

[Jim202]

I am not trying to be funny or anything like that, but are you sure the correct com port is set in the Motorola
program. If you go to the view selection at the top left of the screen, it will show you at the bottom, which
com port or USB port the program is set to. I often forget to change this setting as I do have to swap back
and forth between the serial and USB port of some of the radios I have to program. Yes they do take
different cables and are RIB less.

Also, some computers have multiple USB ports. On my HP laptop computer, it doesn't work on the 2 USB
ports on the left of the computer, but works on the 2 USB ports on the right.

Jim

I bought a RIB from RadioStew (http://www.radiostew.com/therib.php) and tested it on my maxtrac bench unit, communication worked perfectly fine using MAXTRAC RSS on an OLD Pentium 75mhz Toshiba notebook PC running Windows 95 but booted into DOS.

Using what I found in the Batwing information I made myself a cable using a 2.5mm stereo headphone plug, some cable and a DB-25F.



Thats the EXACT cable I built. Double checked to make sure my connections were proper, and plugged it into my radio. The radio is a Motorola CP200 4 channel. Using both that Pentium 75mhz computer along with a Pentium 4 2.8ghz notebook computer with built in RS-232 port. After plugging the cable into the radio and attempting to connect with the CPS Software I get the same problem, error 768 Unable to Read. Wants me to verify radio is powered on and COM port is correctly set. On all computers I checked the serial communication, works perfectly. With the radio plugged in, powered on, RIB powered on, the error takes several seconds to come back. Unhook it all and the same error comes back immediately.

Noticed that I had an issue and the +5 volt data bus on my 2.5mm stereo connector came loose and touched the TIP of the connector. Would +5 volts going into the TIP of that connector damage the data bus inside the radio? Soldered it very firmly and bent the tip's terminal out of the way, powered everything off and tried again. Still no connection on any computer I can hook this thing to, but if I plug my Maxtrac mobile in, it connects right away.

[elesjuan]

Well, since I only have ONE com port available on the computer (Serial RS-232) and am using a Serial RIB, there is only ONE selection in Motorola Software.


Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question. According to what I've been able to find, to use that cable which I made to connect the radio to the RIB it requires a RIB. Whats this about a RIBless cable?

I'm really reluctant to spend ANY more money on this project. Honestly I would really like for this to work but I've now spent well over $100.00 to get a radio working on the 2m Ham band when I could've purchased a brand new Yaesu VX-170 containing FIVE TIMES the features as this damned motorola crap.

4 Channels, repeater ability, talk-around ability, 1 / 5 watt, CTCSS tones (not user selectable) and some crazy ass connector. Rugged, water retardant.

200 Memory Channels, Expanded Coverage 137-174mhz, DTMF full keypad, User selectable CTCSS, Split Tone, 1/5 watts, fully backlight display, baclkight keypad, submersible... $129.99 brand new from the Retailer.

This is why I'm frustrated.

I am not trying to be funny or anything like that, but are you sure the correct com port is set in the Motorola
program. If you go to the view selection at the top left of the screen, it will show you at the bottom, which
com port or USB port the program is set to. I often forget to change this setting as I do have to swap back
and forth between the serial and USB port of some of the radios I have to program. Yes they do take
different cables and are RIB less.

Also, some computers have multiple USB ports. On my HP laptop computer, it doesn't work on the 2 USB
ports on the left of the computer, but works on the 2 USB ports on the right.

Jim

I bought a RIB from RadioStew (http://www.radiostew.com/therib.php) and tested it on my maxtrac bench unit, communication worked perfectly fine using MAXTRAC RSS on an OLD Pentium 75mhz Toshiba notebook PC running Windows 95 but booted into DOS.

Using what I found in the Batwing information I made myself a cable using a 2.5mm stereo headphone plug, some cable and a DB-25F.



Thats the EXACT cable I built. Double checked to make sure my connections were proper, and plugged it into my radio. The radio is a Motorola CP200 4 channel. Using both that Pentium 75mhz computer along with a Pentium 4 2.8ghz notebook computer with built in RS-232 port. After plugging the cable into the radio and attempting to connect with the CPS Software I get the same problem, error 768 Unable to Read. Wants me to verify radio is powered on and COM port is correctly set. On all computers I checked the serial communication, works perfectly. With the radio plugged in, powered on, RIB powered on, the error takes several seconds to come back. Unhook it all and the same error comes back immediately.

Noticed that I had an issue and the +5 volt data bus on my 2.5mm stereo connector came loose and touched the TIP of the connector. Would +5 volts going into the TIP of that connector damage the data bus inside the radio? Soldered it very firmly and bent the tip's terminal out of the way, powered everything off and tried again. Still no connection on any computer I can hook this thing to, but if I plug my Maxtrac mobile in, it connects right away.

[madfrenchie]

I had the same issues as you guys did, I had an XP SP2 machine with USB programming cable for the CP 200. CPS would give me an error saying it could not read the radio, I basically gave the connector on the radio a 1/8 turn tried again and bang, it worked, every so often when i try to program i have to do this, sometimes i turn it once sometimes twice sometimes three times and then bang it works. Strange yes I know, Dangerous... Yes VERY!!!! But I have been doing this for quite some time now on multiple CP200 radios with no issues what so ever.

Give that a try for the fun of it and see if it works.

[jhp]

Look,

There is a reason Motorola doesn't make a ribless USB cable for the CP200.

Any aftermarket nonsense you can almost always assume it will never work 100%.

As stated above, The rib works 100% of the time, the first time.

The only other issue I might see is that the CPS software for the Commercial series radios will not let you program or read a radio with newer firmware installed into the radio that the software can accept for codeplug editing purposes.