The Oxford English Dictionary says, “English never met a word it didn’t like.” Most English words came from other languages, and even today, English continues to absorb new words. Like the word "Kaizen" for "continuous improvement."
Kaizen used to be a Japanese word, but now it's an English word too.
Ethernet and TCP/IP are like English. Always got room for something else. Who knows how many different protocols you can wrap inside an Internet packet?
Ethernet is like a train with flat cars.
TCP/IP is like a flatbed truck trailer.
You can send various protocols across Ethernet and the Internet just like you send shipping containers across the country. Tennis shoes inside a shipping container on a flatbed truck, on a flat car on a train, and those shoes can go anywhere in the world. A lot further than they would go on foot.
Which is exactly how you extend your serial port on any device - a bar code reader, a PLC, a data acquisition unit you installed in 1988 - to any PC in the world.
A serial server ( http://www.bb-elec.com/product_family.asp?FamilyId=120 ) connects your serial port to your intranet or, if you wish, the world wide Internet, and you can access it from any PC in the world in one of the following three modes:
Virtual COM Mode:
In Virtual COM mode a driver is installed on the Windows PC. This creates a virtual connection between the PC and the IP address of the Ethernet to Serial Server over the LAN or WAN. The new COM port shows up in the Windows Device Manager. Windows applications use standard Windows API calls to communicate through this virtual connection with no changes to the software.
After connection, the LAN is transparent to the program and serial device. Applications work just as if the serial device is connected directly to a physical COM port on the PC.
Direct IP Mode:
Direct IP connections allow applications using TCP/IP or UDP/IP socket programs to communicate directly with the serial ports on the Ethernet Serial Server. In this type of application the serial server is configured as a TCP or UDP server. The socket program running on the PC establishes a communication connection with the serial server’s IP address. The data is sent directly to and from the serial port on the server. This is the connection scheme that we recommend if you’re writing your own application.
Paired Mode:
Paired Mode is also called serial tunneling. In this mode any two serial devices that can communicate with a serial cable can communicate using two Ethernet Serial Servers and a LAN. The serial servers handle the network-side communications automatically. In this mode one serial server is configured as a client and the other as a server and each is programmed with the mating device’s IP address. This mode of operation creates a serial connection between any two serial devices with the only restriction on cable length being the size of your LAN or WAN.
It doesn't matter how old your equipment is - just like it doesn't matter how old a word is. The word "packet" comes from Middle English "pekette" but doesn't it sound so... so 21st century... especially when we're talking about the Internet? Even your Allen-Bradley PLC 5 can become a creature of the online world.
Old protocols never die. They just get migrated over TCP/IP.
If we can help you migrate some of your packets and protocols over to TCP/IP - or maybe just get that old weigh scale to configure from your office, so you don't have to drag your laptop down to the plant floor - give us a ring: (815)433-5100.
Happy Connections,
Mike Fahrion
(815)433-5100
support@bb-elec.com
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