Experiment no.

1
The Serial Data Interface

J oseph Kerby J . Nava
Department of Electronics Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, University of Santo Tomas
Sampaloc, Manila, Philippines
josephkerbynava@yahoo.com.ph


Abstract The experiment tackles about the introduction of
serial communication ports to the students and what the interfaces
and how these interfaces are used for serial data transfer between
computers. This includes the study of the physical, electrical,
mechanical and functional characteristics of the cable used that is
the EIA-232-A also known as RS-232.
Index TermsSerial Interface, Data Terminal Equipment
(DTE), Data Communications Equipment (DCE), Breakout box,
Registered Standard (RS), Gender changers and converters.
I. INTRODUCTION
Serial interface serves as a communication interface
between two data transmitting digital systems
[1]
. The data is
transmitted as a series of voltage pulses in a particular wire. The
serial cable used in the experiment is EIA-232-A or formerly
known as RS-232. EIA-232-A has two types depending on the
number of pins involved: the DB25 and the DB9 that has 25 pins
and 9 pins respectively. Logic 1 is a negative voltage termed as
mark and logic 0 is a positive voltage termed as zero. For
control signals, the positive voltage is the active state and the
negative voltage is the inactive state
[2]
. A breakout box is a
device that splits a multiple-cable line into several compound
connectors. It is designed to streamline the wiring system of
electronic devices and to simplify troubleshooting problems
[3]
.
II. INTERPRETATION OF DATA AND RESULTS
A. Cable Wire Mapping
The continuity tester of the digital mutimeter is used to
determine the pin configuration of a DB25 to DB9 serial data
cable. The pinhole in the DB9 side of the connector are checked
as to what is the corresponding pinhole of the said DB9 end in
the DB25 side of the connector. The same applies with the DB25
male to DB9 female connector, but this time with the use of
gender changer or a gender converter.



TABLE I. CABLE WIRE MAP
DCE (DB25
Female) Pin
no.
DCE (DB9
Female) Pin
no.
DCE (DB25
Male)
Pin no.
DCE (DB9
Female) Pin
no.
1 - 8 1
2 - 3 2
3 2 2 3
4 7 20 4
5 8 7 5
6 6 6 6
7 5 4 7
8 1 5 8
9 - 22 9
10 - - -
11 - - -
12 - - -
13 - - -
14 - - -
15 - - -
16 - - -
17 - - -
18 - - -
19 - - -
20 4 - -
21 - - -
22 9 - -
23 - - -
24 - - -
25 - - -
B. Voltage Measurement Reading
With the use of a breakout box to help ease in the voltage
measurement, voltage readings are written in the table below.
This was made by connecting the ground node of the voltmeter
to pin 7 of the breakout box then measuring the voltages in each
of the pins on the DTE side. Same procedure was done with the
DCE side of the breakout box.
TABLE II. VOLTAGE MEASUREMENTS
Pins DTE
Side
Voltage (V) Pins DCE
Side
Voltage (V)
1 -0.045 1 -0.001
2 -9.5 2 -9.42
3 0.068 3 -0.07
4 -9.5 4 -9.42
5 0.064 5 -0.07
6 0.067 6 -0.07
7 0 7 0
8 -0.068 8 -0.07
9 -0.024 9 -0.01
10 -0.0010 10 -0.01
11 -0.0014 11 -0.01
12 -0.009 12 -0.01
13 -0.009 13 -0.01
14 -0.012 14 -0.01
15 -0.011 15 -0.02
16 -0.011 16 -0.02
17 -0.013 17 -0.02
18 -0.014 18 -0.01
19 -0.016 19 -0.02
20 -9.5 20 -9.9
21 -0.008 21 -0.02
22 -0.001 22 -0.07
23 -0.007 23 -0.01
24 -0.001 24 -0.01
25 -0.001 25 -0.02
C. Breakout Box LED Status Checking
LED status was obtained in this part of the experiment. It
was done by observing which pin/s in the DTE and DCE part of
the breakout box are lit.
TABLE III. BREAKOUT BOX STATUS
DTE DCE
Pins Green
LED
Red
LED
Pins Green
LED
Red
LED
1 1
2 / 2 /
3 3
4 / 4 /
5 5
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
10 10
11 11
12 12
13 13
14 14
15 15
16 16
17 17
18 18
19 19
20 / 20 /
21 21
22 22
23 23
24 24
25 25

III. CONCLUSION
The experiment enables the students to familiarize with the
electrical, mechanical, functional and procedural characteristics
of the serial data interface. It was known that the 9 pins,
specifically pins 1 to 8, pin 20 and pin 22, of the DB25 cable is
already enough to make a serial or series transmission of data.
Gender changers and converters are used to compensate for the
ports and convert a DB25 to DB9 and vice versa. DB25 cable is
typically used for modem handshaking.
Lighted green LED on the breakout box means the pin is
active and red LED means it is on standby.
For simplification, the table below shows the pin cable
layout of EIA-232-A (DTE side) DB25 and DB9 and their
respective uses in the data transmission
[4]
.

DB9 Pin DB25 Pin SIGNAL DESCRIPTION
1 8 DCD Data Carrier Detect
2 3 RXD Receive Data
3 2 TXD Transmit Data
4 20 DTR Data Terminal Ready
5 7 GND Ground
6 6 DSR Data Set Ready
7 4 RTS Request To Send
8 5 CTS Clear To Send
9 22 RI Ring Indicator


REFERENCES
[1] M. Lemmon, What is a serial interface?, 2009,
http://www3.nd.edu/~lemmon/courses/ee224/web-manual/web-
manual/lab9/node4.html
[2] ARC Electronics, http://www.arcelect.com/rs232.htm
[3] Technopedia,
http://www.techopedia.com/definition/728/breakout-box-bob.
[4] Electrodroid Android App.