Reading Serial Port Data in VBA

[srathjen]

I'm having trouble getting code to read the incoming data send by a torque reader I'm working with. It sends a RS232 data stream which our current wedgelink software can be set up to translate it into key presses and then exported to excel. I would like to get the data into a string then cut the string up into an array of arrays to be able to use the data directly with excel. There is a ton of stuff how to do it in other languages but I'm limited to VBA right now.

This link https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/37968177/modCOMM.bas has the base code someone wrote where i can open and close the port but im not getting any data or able to hold it open until end of the data feed. I'm still new at this and know I'm missing something.

Serial Port Communication in Excel (VBA) | Electronics Open Source was the first place i found this code. Any ideas?

 

[srathjen]

Sub OpenPort_Click()


Dim intPortID As Integer ' Ex. 1, 2, 3, 4 for COM1 - COM4
Dim lngStatus As Long
Dim strData As String
Dim datFeed As String: datFeed = ""
Dim i As Integer

intPortID = 1


' Open COM port
lngStatus = CommOpen(intPortID, "COM" & CStr(intPortID), "baud=9600 parity=N data=8 stop=1")


'cycle through Com ports 1-8 until found or not there
If lngStatus <> 0 Then
For i = 2 To 8
Call CommClose(intPortID)
intPortID = i
lngStatus = CommOpen(intPortID, "COM" & CStr(intPortID), "baud=9600 parity=N data=8 stop=1")
If lngStatus = 0 Then
Exit For
End If
Next i
End If



If lngStatus <> 0 Then
MsgBox "Error: lngStatus = " & lngStatus
' this should get the strData untill end of file.
Else
MsgBox "Com Port Open"
Do While CommRead(intPortID, strData, 64) <> EOF
datFeed = datFeed + strData
Loop
' this is blank, no data colected, help
MsgBox datFeed
End If

Call CommClose(intPortID)

End Sub


This is my call button. it needs help to hold open the comm port while our device is sending data. any help would be much appreciated, thanks