Application: Vehicle Diagnostics
Quatech Product Used: SSP-100 one port RS-232 Serial PCMCIA Card

Parish Concrete, A Ready Mix Concrete company with about 20 trucks was sold a software diagnostics program that would help isolate problems the truck might encounter. They purchased the software and the recommended laptop only to find that the software required an RS-232 serial port to connect to the truck's onboard computer and that the recommended laptop did not come with a serial port. They first attempted to implement the system with another company's USB to serial adapter, and found it to be incompatible with the system. Their next course was to search for a PCMCIA serial card, which is how they found Quatech. From there the purchasing decision was easy, and the application ran flawlessly.

Customer comment: "I found your company by searching on Google for a Serial PCMCIA card. I think you and one other company came up. But I called your customer
service line to ask a couple of questions and was happy with the information I received and the info available online, so I placed the order. We received the order on the 7th of June and installed it with absolutely no problems and voila it all works great…. your company has helped us a great deal. I would have never thought it would have been so hard to find that card. No local stores carried it and no computer shops could get it so I am pleased that we found your website. " Michele McDaniel Parish Concrete, Inc.

Application: Automotive Testing
Quatech Product Used: DSP-100 two port RS-232 Serial PCMCIA Card

Quatech's DSP-100 is implemented in an automotive electronic validation test stand. Test data is recorded from 3 separate modules, but the laptop used in the application has only one native serial port. The DSP-100 adds the two additional ports, enabling all three tests to be run at the same time.

Application: Automotive Engine Management
Quatech Product Used: SSP-100 one port RS-232 Serial PCMCIA Card

AEM a market leader in automotive performance technology recommends Quatech's SSP-100 for connecting their EMS (Engine Management System) to a laptop that lacks built-in serial ports. When significant performance enhancements have been made to a car's engine, its onboard stock computer often cannot function correctly and cannot generate peak performance from the engine modifications. The AEM EMS system is a "stand alone" computer used to replace the stock computer. It plugs directly into the cars ECU and uses all the stock sensors to maximize performance. See the AEM website (http://www.aempower.com/ems.htm) to learn more about the EMS system and the many cool features it provides.

Application: VAG COM Automotive Diagnostics
Quatech Product Used: SSP-100 one port RS-232 Serial PCMCIA Card

VAG-COM is a software package from Ross-Tech designed for performing diagnostics on Audis and Volkswagens. It provides a wide variety of diagnostic and control tools for system scanning, fault code viewing, and data logging to name just a few. VAG Com installs on a Windows laptop, and interfaces to the car's computer via a RS-232 serial interface. As most users don't have a desktop PC handy in their garage, and they certainly can't take one on the road for a test drive, the VAG COM system is ideally run on a laptop. For the many laptops that do not have a built-in serial port, Ross Tech recommends Quatech' SSP-100 for adding the RS-232 port. In fact, our SSP-100 is the only card they recommend on their website.

If you own an Audi or Volkswagen be sure to check out the Ross-Tech website for more information on the VAG-COM package. http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/

Application: Nautical Chart Preparation
Quatech Product Used: RS-232 Serial PCMCIA Cards

A number of software packages on the market enable anyone with a laptop computer and appropriate sensors to create professional nautical charts and hydrographic surveys. Typical inputs for these systems include water depth sensors (single beam, dual frequency, multiple transducer, and mulitbeam echosounders) gyros, magnetometers, telemetry tide gauges, and GPS systems for positioning. Each of these inputs requires an RS-232 connection to transmit data to a laptop. Quatech RS-232 serial PCMCIA cards can provide up to four RS-232 ports each.

Application: Sailboat Navigation
Quatech Product Used: DSP-100 two port RS-232 Serial PCMCIA Card

One Quatech customer is using our DSP-100 to expand the serial ports on his laptop in order to use it as a navigation computer on his sailboat. The DSP-100 adds two ports to the laptop's native port, providing a total of three. The three ports are used as follows:

Port 1. Receives boat instrumentation information (latitude/longitude,
speed, water depth an the like). This port also sends out control signals to the autopilot.

Port 2. Receives fax (weather charts mostly), Morse code and e-mail from
an ICOM SSB transceiver .

Port 3. Is the remote control port for operation of the ICOM SSB