Fujitsu Siemens Loox N500 and RS232 communications

Hello,

we're developing a CF 1.0 app which uses opennetcfsdf 1.4 for RS232
communications, which works like a charm on the Fujitsu Siemens Loox 410
but doesn't work on the new N500 which has WM 5.0. It has a RS232 which
is COM 1 on the device and I can sync with my laptop over RS232.

Does anybody know which CF version is on this device and how to find
this out? Debugging our app. revealed that the port is opened by our
app. and the opennet functions say it opened correctly. My external
device connected is powered from the RS232 which works, but sending of
data to my device doesn't seem to work, its Tx LED never flashes and so
I never get answers.

I already tried to switch off the infrared port because on a smartphone
tested it used the same UART as the RS232 and thus interfered with it.
So I unchecked "receive all incomming connections" but that didn't
change anything.

Another thins seems to be with timer or so. There is a blinking icon in
the app when it looks for our external devices (scans our external bus)
which works good on the 410 but on the 500 the blinking is all but
regular! Most time you won't see it and the icon flashes only short time.

On a HP iPAQ rx1950 with WM 5.0 RS232 communication works fairly well,
if one changes the initialisation of the RS232 to do it twice. I don't
know why, but then it works.

Anybody any hints for me?
I don't want to change that app. to CF 2.0!

Greetings

Markus

Hello,

after a series of measurements with a oscilloscope we found out today
that this PDA doen't supply any voltage level.

Do I connect it with a device that can supply a voltage level (like PC)
it works, otherwise it doesn't. The curious is, that out RS232 powered
device seems to get enough power from the PDA, but communication is not
possible. It seems the voltage of the PDA breaks in when he has to
deliver some power to an external device.

So anybody anything in mind I could try to work around this problem?
Using a self powered RS232 device is no option, because one would need a
power plug then what would contradict the PDA idea.

There is a USB host cable available from them. Can it be used in
conjunction with the RS232 one? Or does a RS232 and USB host combined
cable exist? I don't mean slave but USB host. And if yes, can I draw
power from that host without being a real USB slave device?

Greetings

Markus