Using a 5V RS232 converter instead of CastleLink

[Jack Crossfire]

$25 to program a CC BEC is ridiculous. This device is obviously just a USB to 5V RS232 converter & I already have one of those. Did anyone ever try a 5V RS232 converter in place of CastleLink?

[Bruce Abbott]

Obviously :rolleyes:

But...

How do they get the RS232 TX and RX data onto a single wire?

How would you trick the Castlelink program into using a serial port instead of its own USB device?

How much money are you really going to save? Is it worth the time and effort spent?

[ciufuliciboy]

It is Mbus ?

[Comatose]

Its really not that outrageous - I say because we have a similar sort of product and charge a similar price. There's really not a lot of profit in the product for us even at the outrageous prices.

Figure the manufacturer is getting maybe half the MSRP. Your distributor takes a cut, the dealer takes a cut. So Castle is getting maybe $12 on each sale of a castlelink. The components going into it are perhaps $5. Labour and overhead is a couple or three bucks.

So Castle is actually making maybe $4 or $5 on it. Then they have the cost of developing and maintaining the software, not to mention having to recoup the cost of developing the silly thing. Its a tough game to be in.

[jeffs555]

It is Mbus ?
Don't have one so don't know for sure, but it is more likely just half duplex TTL level serial(RS232). That is how a lot of the scanner radios are programmed over a two wire cable(TTL level signal and ground). The RS232 transmit line from the PC drives the signal line through an open collector driver. The signal line also connects through a ttl receiver to the RS232 receive input of the PC. The PC is master and sends a command to the device and then waits for a response from the device.

PS I agree the price is not outrageous.

PPS It looks like you were talking about the Nokia Mbus which works just like I described. http://www.mbarron.net/mbus/
When I first googled for Mbus most of what I found was about a power meter bus so didn't think it was what Castle was doing.

[ciufuliciboy]

Put Rx and Tx together and you have Mbus.
Tested with nokia.

[Jack Crossfire]

> Did anyone ever try a 5V RS232 converter in place of CastleLink?

Obviously the answer is no. A lot of people have obviously invested a lot of money and based their livelihood on dedicated BEC programmers. If too many people publicly question why there can be no cheaper way to program a BEC than a dedicated device from Castle Creations, that can show up in a quarterly report. Definitely you want to take reality as it is.

[jeffs555]

> Did anyone ever try a 5V RS232 converter in place of CastleLink?

Obviously the answer is no. A lot of people have obviously invested a lot of money and based their livelihood on dedicated BEC programmers. If too many people publicly question why there can be no cheaper way to program a BEC than a dedicated device from Castle Creations, that can show up in a quarterly report. Definitely you want to take reality as it is.



??????

Just guessing, but it sounds like you are upset because someone dared to suggest that $25 was not an outrageous price for this programmer and CC is not making ridiculous amounts of money off this programmer.

If you really want to do it, I will tell you exactly how. First, you build that Nokia Mbus circuit that I linked because that is the most likely way the hardware interfaces to the ESC. Then you download the castlelink software from CC. If you are lucky, the software will work, but I doubt it, so you will need a disassembler. Disassemble enough of the code to find what they are doing. There are a couple of possibilities. Most likely, they are using a standard USB-serial chip. If your serial adapter uses the same chip, it is possible that just changing the mfg and prod id in their inf file will work. If not, you will have to dig further. It is possible that they are checking the mfg and prod id in their software or driver. If you find it and patch it that may allow it to work. If not, you may have to totally rewrite the driver.

If you think all that work is worth saving $25, then more power to you.

[TheSteve]

The CastleLink interface uses a Silabs processor, and it has had several firmware updates since its release.

Just buy one...