Usb to Serial/TTL Adapter

hello guys this is my first post so bear with me. I order a usb to serial adaptor  for $1.78 from ebay and wanted to try and make it work. since there is no information from the seller exept that is based on the PL2303. Since we have no info and no drivers I decided to google and I found a driver that might work  it comes from prolific  http://www.prolific.com.tw/UserFiles/files/PL2303_Prolific_DriverInstaller_v1_8_0.zip.

we download the driver and we unzip the files. then we run the driver installation program. I am not going to post pictures and step by step instructions because all you have to do is click "ok" and "install".

now that the software is done installing just hit "Finish" and connect the adapter to you computers usb port. the hardware wizard pops up and it automaticly installs the driver for you. We can check our installation by going  in to the device manager and  ports.

we now have to verify the installation, we see in the device manager that it has installed right and the it is set  as COM5. the driver comes with a  utility that verifies the  chip version just go to the driver folder that was unzip earlier and run checkchipversion.exe  we set it to COM5 and we click on "check" it will give you the chip you have since there are a lot of versions of the PL2303.

we can test our adapter using the arduino IDE. we change the port to COM5 and we put a jumper on the adapters pin TXD and RXD.

We open the the serial monitor and we type "hello world"....and we are done.. that's all folks.  I am working on some projects to test the capabilities of the PL2303 will post the later. that's all for today and this was my first instructable ever so bear with me.