Ah ok; This is actually good to know, since I plan to add another syringe pump driven the same way!
you would need a USB to Serial adapter - like an FT232
then indeed using puTTY or another serial terminal you can practice sending the commands, they seems to be only ASCII so easy to type in
I would recommend to move to a MEGA in that case and use the hardware Serial ports. Using more than 1 SoftwareSerial port will possibly get you in trouble if the syringe pump is chatty
I tend to reach for puTTY first, but RealTerm also has some nice features that are worth looking at.
Ok, my goal is to drive everything (=as much as possible) from matlab at the end.
The idea of the FT232 is to drive the pumps it without Arduino directly from the computer?
I planned to use a Mega2560 since there are more pins available anyhow 
yeah that would work, no need from an Arduino in that case as long as you know how to write the commands over the Serial port using matlab
good but no longer needed just one FT232 per syringe
Haha, I need the data from other sensors still, and I have even less clue on how to write from matlab to a FT232 than to an arduino to use sketches on Arduino, but I'm still learning (I'm a chemist, not an IT guy ).
OK but first I need such a FT232 adaptor to physically connect it! I'll give a try when I receive those I just ordered.
scientists nowadays have to be programers to make a difference (or make their job easier), you are on the right track
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This is exactly my objective 
I see there are different FT232 (H, R, RL): which one would you advise?
The FT232R is the most commonly used part in the FT232 family.
You'll find indeed other parts with similar names such as FT232H or FT232B; the former is significantly more expensive, and the latter has been obsolete for many years. The FT232H offers the same functionality as the FT232R, both can be used for UART but the FT232H has the ability to get power from the USB Host.
You'll find also the FT232HP which offers additional power delivery functionality. This allows for control of power direction which can be either supplied from the USB Host or the device.
The FT232R had issues with bit banging but you don't use it for that
so long story short I would go for an FT232R as you likely won't need the extra capabilities of H or HP
There is a significant chance that the part on the board you receive will not be a genuine FTDI part anyway, counterfeit FT232RL chips are quite common, especially if you buy an inexpensive one from eBay and the like in the far east.
Thanks again for all these information! So I'll go for counterfeit FT232RL 
get a few, as with anything coming from far away, some might be broken
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Hi! just wanted to say that's working perfectly and easily with Matlab and the FT232RL, just with these commands:
s = serialport("COM17",9600)
write(s, 'q1h40d','char')
But know I will work with a similar stepper and try to command it directly from Arduino
Cheers
Sebastien
cool thanks for reporting back
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