Hello, I am having trouble with picaxe USB programming cable (AXE027). I bought it to use on my lappy but it does not work properly. I installed all the drivers, checked everything many times but it still says "hardware not found on COM port" when I try to program the chip.
The picaxe programming editor says that usb cable is "ready for use", also the programming circuit is fine, since it works on serial cable. This makes me confused.
Any ideas?
What are you using?
Are you using Axepad?
What operating system is on your laptop?
It’s the PICAXE®
The soft is PICAXE® Programming Editor. I’m on Win7.
Have you tried this?
Have you cliicked on ‘view’ then selected options? If you do this, then you can click on the serial port tab. this will show you all available serial ports, as well as which one has the cable plugged into it.
Also, it may help to insert the cable before you start the editor.
Sadly, all of this is done.
Sadly, all of this is done. 
The furthest I got was “memory verification has failed” after I tried messing up with connecting and disconnecting wires for picaxe’s serin and serout pins. So it seems either I have a crappy cable or … magic? 
Look to the forums…
Maybe you can find a solution here:
http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8330
Did you try running
Did you try running programming editor “As administrator”?
Yeah, I did it as well. I
Yeah, I did it as well. I tried almost everything before posting here
The solution to the problem
The solution to the problem posted on the forum is to buy the AXE027, whereas I have it and still face issues
Some new information.Picaxe
Some new information.
Picaxe 28x1 seems to be programmed perfectly, but 18m2 programming is faulty. What may cause such a weird problem?
what is Prog editor version?
what is Prog editor version?
The newest one (5.3.3). You
The newest one (5.3.3). You think I should try downgrading the software?
Not really, I just was
Not really, I just was reading 18m2 brochure and there they say PE version should be 5.3.0 or greater to support the chip. So, you look covered from that side…
Is the chip brand new or
Is the chip brand new or there already a program in it? I’m sure that you have tried this but to make sure: did you try starting program upload and resetting the chip? What else I was going to suggest… hmmm… ah, I would try to explicitly define the chip in your program with #picaxe 18m2 preprocessor command.
does that usb cable have the
does that usb cable have the FTDI chip built-in? I think the FTDI chip creates another com port for your laptop to use, so when you plug it in or unplug, your laptop should see that happening and it should create a new com port when plugged in, and take it away when you unplug it. can you see that happening in the Windows Device Manager? (assuming its Windows). verify all that without the robot being plugged into the cable.
and of course you need to change com ports in your editing s/w to use the new com port, different from the serial port which is always there. is there an Auto setting on the com port selection in the editor?
by the way, congrats on your recent accomplishments.
Yeah, the FTDI is built-in.
Yeah, the FTDI is built-in. But I am using the created com port.
As it was said before, the connection seems to be established well, but the picaxe 18m2 refuses to be programmed, while there is no problem with 28x1.
Thanks 
Bad 18m?
Are you programming the 18m2 on a breadboard? Perhaps the chip isn’t properly powered up?
The thing is, when I put the
The thing is, when I put the serial cable in from my PC then the circuit of 18m2 works well, but when I put the USB cable to the exact same circuit it somehow does not recognise the hardware. :?
Did you try disabling FIFO
Did you try disabling FIFO buffers for virtual serial port created by usb cable?
The problem’s solved (kind of)
The problem seems to lie in the SD21 board. I tried puttin the programming circuit on a breadboard and program the 18m2 with the USB cable. It worked flawlessly.
However, the SD21 built-in programming function is somewhat different and is likely to accept only the direct serial connection. This is the only explanation I can think of, since when a chip is inserted in the SD21 and programmed with a serial cable, there are no problems, whereas I get “hardware not found” when using USB cable.
Thus, thanks for your help, the problem is partially solved.
I would still appreciate any tips on how to make the programming work on SD21 directly using the USB cable. Thanks.
