Tech Edge USB drivers (Win32)

Some Tech Edge products (eg. the 3A2/3E2 controller) have a high speed USB interface for fast data transfer of logged memory. Note that the controller must be powered by a 12 Volt supply (the controller's USB interface does NOT run in bus powered mode). The rest of this page contains instructions for installing the USB Virtual Com Port drivers required by your Windows computer. The images are shown for a Win-XP installation, other Windows versions should be similar.

Download & Unzip the Drivers

Firstly - Download the USB driver (zip package) from here - teUSB-r0.zip

The contents of the zip file should be unpacked(*) into a new folder. Connect the Wideband unit to a source of power (bench top power supply, car battery etc.) and connect an appropriate USB cable between the computer and wideband unit. Note: the USB will only be recognised by the computer when the Wideband unit is correctly powered (the USB interface does not run in bus powered mode).

Connect the USB cable

(*note) use WinZip or a similar program to upzip the driver files - recent versions of Windows have an inbuilt compressed folder functionality. Refer to your computer documentation for more information.

Windows will recognize that a new device has been connected, and prompts you to select the driver package to use. This is shown at right. To ensure Windows selects the correct (Tech Edge) driver you should select the non-default option :

  Install from a specific location

As the dialogue box shows, press the Next button to continue the installation.

Locate the driver software

You are then prompted to select the folder containing the driver package:

  • Select Search for the best driver in these locations
  • Check the include this location in the search option
  • using the Browse button, navigate to the folder where you unzipped the Tech Edge driver package.
  • click the Next button.

In the example at right, the drivers were unzipped into the directory c:\INFO\WB\USB\TE_CDM_Setup although on your computer you will have selected a different location.

Driver has not passed testing!

If all is well, and windows successfully located the unzipped driver files, you will be presented with the dialogue box at right. Do not be concerned that Windows is complaining the driver has not been tested.

The driver really has been tested by FTDI, the people who make the USB interface chip we use. For more information, see their website ftdichip.com.

Select Continue Anyway button.

  • For the technically minded, Tech Edge has been issued with FTDI PID (Product ID) of hex BED0 (ie. $BED0 or 0xBED0). Apart from this customisation, we use the standard FTDI VCP (Virtual COM port) drivers.

    • System Restore Point

    Windows XP will create a system restore point so you can roll back your changes if something goes wrong, earlier versions of Windows will skip this step. See how this dialogue box looks here.

    Driver now Installed

    The driver is now installed, Windows will now repeat this process to install a Virtual Com Port so you can select the USB channel as a serial port in Windows programs like TEWBLOG and WBFLASH.

    Your USB Wideband O2 is installed, and ready to use!. typically Windows will use a COM port higher than COM4 for the USB driver. If you open TEWBLOG and use the Select COM port drop down, you should see, for example, COM1, COM2, COM6. COM6 in this instance is the most likely to be the USB port, so select that, and see if you get valid readings via the USB cable on the Wideband O2.