Serial communication boards

Micronix PV-interfaces let you customize your system and optimize a combination of RS232, RS422, or RS485 data transmission. All signals are surge protected for industrial applications. The PV-modules plug into any standard PC/104 bus interface.

With the advanced 16C550-compatible UART or high-speed 16C650-compatible UART (-H versions) with 16-byte FIFO, your industrial PC can communicate with other computers or peripherals at high speeds.

The PV-modules are compatible with standard serial interfaces supported by virtually all operating systems. Four ribbon cables with DB-9 connectors are optional.

Non-stackthrough or Stackthrough (S-versions) connectors are available.

Features

• Four channels of asynchronous serial communication
• Baud rates up to 115200 bps, or 460800 bps (-H versions)
• 16C550 or 16C650 compatible UARTs with 16-byte FIFO
• Supports RS232 interface: TxD, RxD, RTS, CTS, DTR, DSR, DCD, GND
• Complete RS232 modem control signals except RI
• RS422, RS485: RTS used for data direction control
• I/O address selectable (248h, 258h, 268h, 278h, 2C8h, 2D8h, 2E8h, 2F8h, 348h, 358h, 368h, 378h, 3C8h, 3D8h, 3E8h, 3F8h) per port
• Interrupt selectable (IRQ 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 or 15) per port
• Can use a single shared IRQ for all four ports
• Surge protection to ±8 kV according to IEC1000-4-2
• Supported by DOS, Windows, and other operating systems
• Operating temperature: 0 - 60°C
• Storage temperature: -20 - 60°C
• Relative humidity: 0 - 90%, non-condensing
• Dimensions: 95 x 90 x 18 mm
• PC/104 Stackthrough connectors (S-versions)

Ordering codes

PV-abcd [-H] [-S] [-5V]

• a = number of RS232 ports (0-4)
• b = number of 2-wire RS485 ports (0-3)
• c = number of 4-wire RS485 ports (0-1)
• d = number of RS422 ports (0-1)
• -H: Highspeed
• -S: Stackthrough
• -5V: 5V Only

Available models

Example: PV-2002-S-5V: This adapter has two RS232 ports and two RS422 ports, runs at normal speed, has stackthrough connector, and only requires +5V power.

Highspeed option

When the Highspeed (-H) option is specified in the model number, the UARTs use a 7.3728 MHz crystal frequency instead of the normal 1.8432 MHz crystal. Therefore all baud rates are four times as fast as normal. This means that if you configure a baud rate of 2400 bps in standard serial communication software, the real speed will be 9600 bps. To use the 460800 bps speed, you set your communication software to 115200 bps.

Stackthrough option

When the Stackthrough (-S) option is specified in the model number, the board has long pins on the bottom side of the PC/104 connector so that other PC/104 boards can be connected both below and above the PV-serial board.

When the -S option isn't specified, the board only has the female PC/104 connector on the top side. In this case, other PC/104 adapters can only be connected above the PV-serial board.

5V Only option

The 5V Only (-5V) option can be specified for PV-serial boards with one or more RS232 ports. When it is specified, the board only requires +5V power from the PC/104 bus. When it isn't specified, both +5V, +12V, and -12V are required from the PC/104 bus for the RS232 ports to work.

The models that only have RS422 and RS485 ports will always work with a +5V supply only.

Micronix PV Serial Interfaces Documentation

• Using shared IRQ from DOS programs. This C program shows how to use shared IRQ from a Borland C++ 3.1 program.
• Beyond Logic (offsite link) has information about standard serial port usage.
• The Linux Serial-HOWTO (offsite link) has a lot of information about serial communication under Linux.
• PV-Serial Brochure (Adobe PDF, 72KB)
• PV-Serial Users Manual (Adobe PDF, 84KB)