Mac installation of AXE027 driver

RPJG

New Member
Desperately need help

I have followed the installation instructions to the letter but have failed to install the driver on my iMac (High Sierra 10.13.3). All goes well with the installation windows and I eventually get the window Installation successful. I reboot the Mac, plug in the AXE027 cable and nothing...

at this point in the instructions say:
"When the computer has rebooted, plug in the AXE027 cable.
If the device is installed properly, you will now see the cable as a symbolic link file entry in the /dev directory:
/dev/tty.usbserial-xxxxxxxx"

Obviously the device is not installed properly as I can find no evidence of this file in the /dev directory.

What do I do now to make the device install properly?
 

tmfkam

Senior Member
Sorry you've had no replies, sorry too that I can't really offer any guidance on how to install the AXE027 driver on a Mac. On my iMac, it all 'just worked'. I originally installed it years ago on MacOS Tiger on a Mac Mini and it has migrated with various newer Macs and newer OS's over the years. It is a long time since I installed it but have no recollection of any problems. I've managed to install the Windows PE5 and PE6 into a VirtualBox which shares the AXE027 with MacOS and have no real problems there either.

I think that later versions of MacOS may have multiple /dev/ directories so it may be you are looking in the wrong place?
AxePad has a 'Locate AXE027' function, which I think may be located in or around the PicAxe menu option which I have to use almost every time I plug and unplug the USB cable. That may help in testing the install?
I seem to recall I had problems with certain USB hubs, at one time I had a Post-It note pointing to a USB socket that said 'This socket only for PicAxe' so perhaps try another socket or hub?
I did have an App called something like 'USB Spy' which showed all USB devices attached, might be worth looking at?
If you click the Apple menu in the MenuBar, select 'About this Mac', System Information, Hardware (or something similar) there should eventually be a USB tree showing USB devices connected which again may help track it down.

If you've done all that already, sorry for not offering any thing useful.

Good luck.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
There do seem to have been a number of issues arising with latest Mac OS releases and there are others out there reporting issues with '/dev' devices not appearing when their non-AXE027 USB serial adapters are plugged in. It may be that Apple have changed things, stopped what worked from working.

The AXEpad 'serial help' or 'find cable' I recall just does a directory listing of /dev/tty.usbserial-* and filters results so it may not be that useful if the device is differently named or does not appear.

It is probably worth doing a manual 'ls /dev/tty*' to see if that reveals anything. Perhaps 'ls /dev' may show something, an 'ls /dev' both before and after inserting the cable may show the newly plugged cable being added.
 

tuss

New member
Mr hippy i need help for some reason when I press the link to go and install the 64bit mac axe027 on the driver's software page it comes up as missing in FTDI chip
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
I am afraid I don't know for sure but it appears that FTDI have moved the location of where to download their drivers for Mac from. The FTDI page which lists all the supported drivers can be found at -

 
Top