Serial->USB converter - anyone had any experience with this?

[detch01]

I broke down and bought a new system... but, my pedals are old analog (CH pedals) and need a temporary solution while the piggy-bank gets heavy enough to replace them with new CH Pro pedals. A salesman tried to sell me a serial to USB connector but I passed, at least until I have a better idea of how it'll work. Has anyone here had any experience using one of these converters for a controller setup?

Cheers,
asw

[Vulcan]

Your rudder pedals are gameport, not serial, it would not work. Said salesman deserves a jolly good beating.

[doc1kelley]

Your rudder pedals are gameport, not serial, it would not work. Said salesman deserves a jolly good beating.

And there are Gameport--> USB adapters out there.  I have been running my old CH rudder pedals via an old RadioShack adapter for years without problem.  Several other companies make them also.

All the Best...

    Jay
 awDoc1

[The Fugitive]

I still have mine from radioshack too, used it for years. Radio shack doesn't have them any more, but THIS PLACE has what you need

[MrRiplEy[H]]

My MS Sidewinder PP1 came (and is) with a gameport to USB adapter so there should be plenty lying around used too.

[Fulmar]

I bought a Serial to USB (Not gameport) cable a couple years ago to connect my older UPS system to my non-serial port computer.  When I plugged it into the UPS system, the wiring short light lit up in the back of the UPS and the UPS shut off.  I tried it on 2 other UPS's and same result.

[Spatula]

I still have mine from radioshack too, used it for years. Radio shack doesn't have them any more, but THIS PLACE has what you need

Yup, i had one of these for a long time on my non-pro CH game-port pedals. The pedal are about 10 years old now, and the converter got about 6 years of use before it started crapping out - not bad really. The pedals are still mint. For a quick and easy solution those adapters work pretty well. They have a 4-way mode switch selecting 4 different stick emulations/modes. I think i used the 4-axis, 4 button mode (mode 1 or 2 i think). Windows thought it was a 4-axis, 4 button stick, and so did AH2. But the AH2 mapper lets you pick the rotation axis alone and ignore the rest. Just map it to analog rudder, and you're away.

If you have the non-pro version, you will only get the one axis (with "plane" mode set on the rudders) - this is what i had. If you have the pro version, i know there is a way to get the toe-brakes working as well, and i think it has something to do with plugging the bypass gameport cable back onto the main plug creating a loop of sorts - i saw it on ebay, someone was selling their pro pedals on a adapter and did that to get theirs fully working with toe brakes, i've since seen someone else mention something similar somewhere else. Experiement a bit.

If you're handy with a soldering gun and have some electronics knowledge, then you could try rewiring it with one of these http://www.lbodnar.dsl.pipex.com/joystick/ This is what i have just recently done. Works brilliantly and much smoother too.