
MOXA White Paper
Expand Your Serial COMs with Optical Fiber
Copyright © 2006 The MOXA Group Released on August 22, 2006
About MOXA
The MOXA Group manufactures one of the world’s leading brands of device networking solutions. Products include
serial boards, device servers, ready-to-run embedded computers, USB-to-serial hubs, media converters, terminal
servers, Modbus gateways, industrial switches, remote I/O servers, and Ethernet-to-fiber converters. Our
products are key components of many networking applications, including industrial automation, manufacturing,
POS, and medical treatment facilities.
How to Contact MOXA
Tel: 1-714-528-6777
Fax: 1-714-528-6778
Web: www.moxa.com
This document was produced by the MOXA Technical Writing Center (TWC). Please send your comments or
by Mr. Stephen Lin, MOXA Technologies Co., Ltd.
Note: Some of the content for this paper was contributed by Nienschanz-Automatica, Ltd.
Serial devices are used around the world as integral
components of industrial automation systems. This is due in
part to the fact that RS-232/422/485 interfaces are easy to set
up and economical to use. For example, the 2-wire RS-485
interface can be used to connect as many as 32 serial devices
to a single half-duplex line. Since the transmission distance can
be up to 1200 meters, RS-485 is suitable for many factory
applications. If more devices or greater distances are required,
RS-485 repeaters can be used to extend the 1200 meter limit
or increase the number of devices connected to the system.
Repeaters can also be used to combine several RS-485
networks into a more complex, tree-type network. However,
one of the drawbacks of using RS-485 repeaters is that each
extension is still limited to 1200 meters. Moreover, the serial
signals sent by the repeaters could be corrupted by the effects
of electromagnetic interference.
In this paper, we introduce two solutions that can be used to
overcome these problems. Both solutions use optical fiber,
since optical signals are immune to electromagnetic
interference, and the signals can be transmitted over distances
up to 40 kilometers.
Comentarios a estos manuales