Cristian,
Like everyone else, I want to thanks for you posting this code. There is no telling if I would have found it or not without this article. I am an Electrical Engineering student and I have no experience with VBA or API at all. I wouldn't even consider myself to be that good of a programmer, but here's my setup.

I am trying to devolop more or less a data acquisitionor. We are using an Xbee module to transmit some voltages and logic levels of a circuit to a laptop while the circuit is running. Ideally, I would like to get this values into excel in realtime to graph the data as it occurs. From what I've read, the Receiver USB Xbee module uses an FTDI chip to convert UArt to USB (part #FT232RL). We have it setup to transmit data every 0.1 seconds now, and I would like to have the macro wait until it receives some the data, then checks to see it it is valid, then place it in cells in Excel.

I think I have aplan that will work for placing the data where I want it and splitting the string received on the comport into graph-able data, but I have not figured out how to get it to wait for data to be received on the comm port.

Anyway, will this code work for that end goal? Some comments suggest not. If not, do you have any suggestions on how to accomplish this? I'm a hardware guy and I've never written anything like this before. I am very ignorant on the topic. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks again for the wonderful article! Below is my preliminary untested code (I do not have access to the XBee module right now). Cut me some slack please, it is most likely terrible and inefficient. The large file from the article is included with no modifications to the workbook.

-EEKizzle

=============================================================================

Sub Button2_Click()

Dim intPortID As Integer ' Ex. 1, 2, 3, 4 for COM1 - COM4
Dim i As Integer
Dim j As Integer
Dim rawData As Long
Dim serialData As String
Dim begin As String
Dim elFin As String
Dim dataValid As String
Dim check As String
Dim data As Variant

intPortID = 1

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

'------Wait for Signal from Electrical Box------
' Do Until begin = "Begin"
' rawData = CommRead(intPortID, begin, 5) Continuously waits for begin command from box
' Loop

'------------------Collect Data------------------

For i = 6 To 10000 ' Sets row to place data in. Also loops until session is over. 10000 is just an absurdly large value. No run through will have this many data points.
rawData = CommRead(intPortID, check, 1) ' Read data and check for end condition or valid data
If check = "-" Then ' Indicates data collection is complete
i = 10000 ' sets i to 10000 to exit loop

ElseIf check = "+" Then ' Indicates that the line contains data we wish to graph
rawData = CommRead(intPortID, serialData, 15) ' reads string of data to be graphed
data = Split(serialData, ",") ' cuts string into individual values for graphing

For j = 2 To 6 ' sets column to place data in
Cells(i, j) = data(j - 1) ' places acquired serial data in the correct cell for graphing
Next j ' iterate column
End If ' end if statement
Next i ' iterate row

' Close COM port
Call CommClose(intPortID)

End Sub
=============================================================================

Hi EEKizzle,
Please note that the following article might be helpful:

http://dev.emcelettronica.com/serial-port-communication-excel-vba

However, be aware that nobody has tried the code in this article with a USB to serial converter so it might not work. Actually, if you look at the following comment:

http://dev.emcelettronica.com/serial-port-communication-excel-vba#commen...

you might draw the conclusion that one user tried it, but is having problems. One alternative to VBA might be C#. Take a look at this:

http://dev.emcelettronica.com/serial-port-communication-c

It definitely works with the FTDI chips, in case the Virtual Com Port drivers are used. The compiler for C# is free and somehow C\ seems friendlier to the beginner programmer than VBA (at least this is my opinion).

Regards,
Cristian