Generic Serial Driver error

I didn't see a sub category for the generic serial driver so hopefully this is close enough.  I'm trying to send commands to my lumagen using the usb->serial connection but I'm getting a "Cannot send command to device - Device not connected".  I know I can issue the commands from the Raspberry pi command line so everything is hooked up correctly.  Is there more detailed logs anywhere that might help me understand what's wrong?

I'm also looking for guidance on installing a USB to Serial adaptor to connect my ELK alarm system.  

I assume that is covered in the ELK driver doc.
But you get a USB to DB9 adapter cable and plug that into the "bottom USB 2.0" (non blue) slot in the Raspberry Pi.  connect your ELK with the proper serial cable to that and to the ELK port.

David, any thoughts on my original problem with the generic serial driver?

I still can't get the generic serial driver to "connect" to the lumagen even though I can send the commands over the usb port to the lumagen from the linux command line.  So in the meantime I created a simple bash script and put it in /home/allonis.  I then created a macro called lumagencmd that calls the script.  And anywhere that I want to send a serial command to the lumagen I just use the lumagencmd macro.
 
Here is the lumagencmd macro:
    Macro|Run|/home/allonis/lumagen.sh~"<p1>"!

Here is the lumagencmd bash script:
    #!/bin/bash
    echo -e "$1\c" >> /dev/ttyUSB0

And here is an example of how to turn on the lumagen:
    LumagenCmd|%!

NOTE: Some of the command symbols cause problems in the Designer app and/or the macros.  For those you need to pass the hex ASCII representation.  The ones I've found so far are these(there are probably more):
    "~" = \x7E - Auto Aspect On
    ">" = \x3E - Right Arrow
    "<" = \x3C - Left Arrow

So auto aspect on would look like this:
    LumagenCmd|\x7E!