cSystemT Converters

Speed of Light Network Communication with Serial Devices up to 2.5 Miles Distant

Get the benefits of fiber optic cabling - range up to 2.5 miles, resistance to EMI/RFI, and transient immunity - plus the ability to attach four or more serial devices to a single RS-232, RS-422 or RS-485 port. This is perfect for factory floor and point-of-sale installations and other heavy traffic, high interference applications.

cSystem (named after the symbol for the speed of light) consists of a serial-to-fiber converter, usually located near the host PC, and the fiber-to-serial converter near the serial device. The host converter has four pairs of fiber ports, allowing that many fiber cables to be attached to distant locations. There is also an expansion port which allows additional host converters to be connected.

>At the other end of the fiber cable, the signal is converted to RS-232 serial by the Model FDS4FE Fiber-to-RS-232 converter and routed to the slave devices, whether they be cash registers, scales, scanners or other devices. Again, an expansion port allows cascading to add four additional ports for each added converter.

RS-232 data signals at up to 115.2kbps and RS-422 or RS-485 data signals at up to 460kbps are supported. The Model FDF4SE host adapter supports both the Transmit and Receive data lines, and provides full hardware control of the RS-422/485 driver with B&B's Automatic Send Data control circuit. Timeouts are dip-switch selectable between 0.10 and 2.2 ms. All serial connections are provided on the same DB-25 female connector. The multi-mode fiber is connected via ST connectors and RJ-45 connectors are used for the expansion ports.>

The unit must be powered with 10-30 VDC (370 mA @ 10V). Power can be supplied through either the power jack, the DB-25 female pin 25(+) and pin 12(-), or the terminal block located inside the enclosure.

The host converter Model FDF4SE costs $479.95 each. The slave converter Models FDS4FE are $249.95 each.