Serial to USB cable for Stinger

I just obtained a Suunto Stinger Dive computer having previously used a Vyper with a USB cable and JDivelog on Ubuntu for downloading my divelogs. The stinger has a serial cable and I tried an old Belkin Serial to USB cable I had hanging around, but I got no response from the stinger and a comm error on the software. Does anyone know of a cable that will work, as I don't feel inclined to stump up £40 for a serial to usb cable, or have Suunto done something dirty with the cabling.

The Belkin cable is recognised in Ubuntu and the transmission light flashes but nothing on reception.


Thanks in advance

I have wanted to download dive profiles from my Suunto computer to my netbook (running Xubuntu) for quite some time now. I haven't had much luck installing various driver software packages supporting Prolific chipset serial-to-USB cables. Last time I tried was about a year ago. Linux distros have notoriously poor driver support for cable accessories.

Sorry that I couldn't offer any help. If you figure anything out, please let us know how you got it to work. Good luck.

With the Vyper, the biggest problem was Java. I installed that first then installed the JDivelog and the extra libraries that came with JDivelog ignoring what had been provided by Ubuntu. The next problem was finding the divecomputer which I think was at /dev/ttyUSB0 but only appeared once you connected the divecomputer via the usb cable and set it up for communication. Without the RXTX drivers from JDivelog nothing happened. These drivers and a correctly setup Java installation are crucial.

My computer is talking to the Serial to USB connector. The stinger is taking to the Suunto cable, The serial to USB cable it talking to the Suunto cable, but the Suunto cable has its fingers in its ears singing La la la la la saying I can't hear you.

Well I chatted to a friend about this and he commented that many of these devices need 12v which they get from the serial port but many of the usb to serial cables only supply 5v which is inadequate. He supplied me with a Belkin F5U103 which is about £9.99 at Amazon at present and it works a dream. No drivers just plugged it in, selected stinger in JDivelog and /dev/ttyUSB0 via RXTX 2.1 as the port and download.

That's good to know. I bought a generic which had a PL2303 chipset (prolific, no?) which worked just fine for jdivelog and my mosquito.

Making sure you have the correct kernel driver or module loaded is key as well.

If anyone knows a working protocol for the D9, I'd be happy as well!

I'm late to this thread, but felt it appropriate to share my experience trying to get the Suunto Stinger to connect and upload logs to my laptop. I had unsuccessfully tried using a Prolific usb-serial adapter, and I think the lower voltage issues discussed above were dead on. Using a friend's Belkin F5U103v USB-serial adapter finally worked for me. Oddly the Belkin still used the prolific driver, even after a driver update search online (via the com port "Update Driver" method), but it worked so whatever. More proof and logic to support the voltage theory.

However the Belkin USB-serial adapter didn't completely solve the issue. I had to toy with the COM settings for a while then it finally worked...

PC: Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit) running on a Sony VAIO laptop
Software: Suunto Dive Manager 3.1
Belkin F5U103v USB-Serial adapter running the Prolific 3.4.62.293 driver version dated 10/17/2013.
COM(mine landed on COM4) CONFIG-1:

• Bits per second: 2400 (Windows defaults is 9600)
• data bits: 8
• Parity: "Mark" (Windows defaults to "even")
• Stop bit: 1
• Flow control: "Hardware" (Windows defaults to "none")
• default FIFO settings under the advanced button

This configuration worked and Suunto DM 3.1 connected, downloaded all dives, and allowed me to update the personal info on the Stinger.

My ultimate goal was to upload my Stinger dive log info directly to DiveBoard.com using their plugin, and when I couldn't get connection at all the DiveBoard admins were very helpful and wisely pointed me to this forum thread to get moving in the right direction and I was able to get the Stinger working with DM3.1. Unfortunately at this time I have not been able to upload stinger logs directly to DiveBoard.com when using COM CONFIG-1 settings I listed above that worked sith DM3.1, nor any other possible settings. As a work around I can still export my log info from the DM3.1 to DiveBoard.com. I may be unrealistically hoping for too much compatability for a 13 year old dive computer, but I'm going to keep trying. I will post any updates about the DiveBoard functionality. Thanks to everyone else above for sharing their knowledge and experience and please continue!

To add to this, I recently discovered that there are several "fake" prolific chips which will not work with newer versions of Windows. Most will work with Linux, but I wouldn't be surprised if voltage is creating a problem with the fake ones.

There is a dive log that runs natively on Mac, Windows, and Linux (not java) called "subsurface". Much easier transfer process.