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Reviews For: USB2LPT

Category: Third-party Equipment

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Review Summary For : USB2LPT
Reviews: 1MSRP:
Description:
device that connects to your computers USB port and provides a real LPT port (not just windows printing service)
Product is in production
More Info: http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/basteln/PC/USB2LPT/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
W9OY Rating: 2009-12-27
Saved the day Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently built a new computer that has NO facility for LPT ports. There is no hardware on the mother board for this. I use LPT ports for station automation and the lack of a LPT port put a dent in the integration of my new computer into the rest of my station. The expansion slots are PC express-16 and I could not find a LPT card that would plug into that particular socket

What's a mother to do? AHH how about all those USB-printer dongles? It turns out those USB-printer dongles are NOT LPT ports. They get enumerated as "windows printing services" devices under the USB list in windows, and they do NOT show up as a LPT port. One of the boys on the Flex list suggested this little converter as a solution. It works perfectly. I suggest if you want the high speed version you do NOT buy the kit form as this version uses a leadless close pitched IC and is nearly impossible to install by hand unless you are THE SMD GURU.

I did buy the high speed version 1.7 but for my application the lower speed (and lower cost) version 1.6 would have sufficed. The 1.6 version kit is probably build-able by the average guy who has SMD experience.

What can I say, this thing saved my bacon, and I think even though its not a "ham specific" item it is precisely the thing I needed to make my ham station work the way I want, and it's worth for the ham community know about its existence since it looks like the LPT port may be going the way of the Dodo on new computers.

I use this in conjunction with my Flex 5000 and a companion program by K5FR called DDUTIL. DDUTIL outputs BCD data on a LPT, and I use the BCD data to run my ALS-1300 amp in auto band switching mode and to run an Ameritron coax switch I modified to use BCD data to automatically band switch my antennas as I change bands.

73