Spaceball 4000 serial to usb adaptation

Has anyone been able to use a Spaceball 4000 FLX with a serial plug on
a computer with only USB ports? 3Dconnexions website says they do not
support any kind of serial to USB adapter but I'm sure there are smart
guys out there who have been succesful?
Mike

 

I tried some time ago to use a USB to serial adapter on my Compaq N800w
laptop, but did not have much sucess. I was able to use my spaceball
(4000FLX) but found that very often Solidworks would freeze until it got an
input from the spaceball. If I would move the spaceball it would
"un-freeze" and contunue to work. Too often I would sit waiting for a what
I thought was a rebuild only to find after a few minutes that it was the
spaceball issue issue holding things up agian. I eventually got frustrated
and quit using it with the adapter.

I tried every setting I could think of and was not able to fix the problem.
3Dconnesion just gave me the same line when I requested help that they don't
support adatper but were more then happy to sell me a 5000FLX.

-mb

 

i bought the adapter and used it on a friends sony vaio laptop. it was a
little chuncky but worked pretty good. does usb version and system resources
play a part?

 

Are you talking about a serial to USB adapter? Did you use the 3D
connexion software for serial or usb?
Thanks
Mike

 

Oh I'm sure they'd like to sell you another one at $500 a clip.
Your account doesn't hold much promise going the adapter route.
Actually, I believe I have an open PCI slot. I wonder if a serial
card would work. I don't see why not??
MikeB

 

com (db9m I think) to USB is the connector and I just used the 3d connexion
software for the serial version. I attribute the chunkiness to the less than
adequate but all I could find to borrow laptop ;0) my space ball at home is
the 4000flx and i have the 5000 usb version at work. I wonder if they would
notice if i switched them? one issue i did have was trying to use the
adaptor on my pc. i have usb in the front so i figured i'd leave the adapter
on the ball all the time and just plug it in the front usb ports but i
couldn't get it to work. it would beep beep beep but wouldn't fire up in
swx.