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Best / most reliable 4-port IP>RS232 device?

fogled@mizzoufogled@mizzou Posts: 549
in AMX General Discussion
Just wondering what experiences y'all might have with devices like this. Would like recommendations if possible...

Comments

  • TurnipTruckTurnipTruck Posts: 1,485
    I have used the single port Moxa n-ports with good success.
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    I also use Moxa 8 port servers on most large jobs. Very easy to configure and have been more stable than using Com2's. You can get straight RS232 and for a little more get RS232/485 models for around $700.00 (8 port)
  • fogled@mizzoufogled@mizzou Posts: 549
    Sweet - thanks for the tips, guys! These Moxa units are just what I'm looking for - good documentation, nice looking boxes, and recommended by y'alls and y'uns and stuff.
  • TurnipTruckTurnipTruck Posts: 1,485
    I have also used them where I had an audio processor that was configured with a PC application that was serial only. The Moxa devices come with a piece of software that creates virtual COM ports on the PC for the application to connect to, then forwards commands over IP to the Moxa device which spits the commands back out through a serial port into the audio processor. The process is called "COM port redirection."
  • JohnMichnrJohnMichnr Posts: 279
    Bumping this thread back up -

    Any body have any different units other than the Moxa - or are people still using the Moxa?

    Anybody using anything with POE?
  • DiogoDiogo Posts: 65
    Well here in brazil we use the novacomm units
    It's produced here and cost about 150/200 reais(US$60)

    It's a awesome piece of hardware, I've used a couple of times and never had problems
    You configure it by browser, but only in portuguese :/ . So I believe it's not a option for you. I also used another brand, but I can't remember right now :(

    http://www.novacomm.com.br/ProdutosDetalhe.asp?IDProduto={A11FB2E1-F965-466F-9CF0-6A95A237817A}&expand=no&IDCat={7DA4C0A2-43CE-4B5C-A35B-4FE02BC2C23C}&IDSubCat={5FA25DC8-6F96-4056-9C65-5508DC4835D5}
  • John NagyJohn Nagy Posts: 1,742
    We use lots of the DIGI-ONE SP
    http://www.digi.com/products/serialservers/digionesp.jsp#overview
    Available in distribution and AMAZON from under $140. They just work.
    They have a 2 port unit at more than double the price, and an 8 port and 16 port at nearly the same 800 or so.
  • fogled@mizzoufogled@mizzou Posts: 549
    Interesting this thread should be brought up again. I had problems with my installation for the first time - first day of semester - yesterday. Of course the system ran fine most of the day, but seemed to get all gummed up towards the end of the day. It appeared that several devices lost connection, or that the timelines that control buffering and projector power-up and power-down transitions got stuck.

    I am currently driving 17 rooms through the Moxa units; 14 of them with 3 serial devices, 3 more with 4 serial devices. Each device has it's own IP connection, plus one more IP connection for a logging interface. Plus 17 touchpanels. That's 72 total IP connections in and out of the controller. As for timelines, there should always be 17 of them running, with as many as 85 possibly running at a time.

    It is, of course, far more likely that the last 3 rooms / devices I added have some programming bug in them that's causing the problem (I'm combing through my code now to look for errors), but I was wondering if anyone knew of a practical limit on the number of IP connections, for panels and IP_Client devices? Same question, more or less, for timelines.

    Otherwise, these Moxa 4-port units running from a central controller have been "Da Bomb."

    Thanks,
  • fogled@mizzoufogled@mizzou Posts: 549
    It turns out my problem is a failure of the buffering function in CREATE_BUFFER against virtual devices. This seems to be very similar to the problem I ran into with CREATE_LEVEL discussed here: http://www.amxforums.com/showthread.php?6720-Having-an-awful-time-with-level-connections

    It seems to work OK for real devices, but I'll probably completely unhook all built-in buffering anyway. Trust, where art thou? I know the data is being sent to the correct virtual device, but the data shows up in the wrong buffer. At least it's fairly trivial to explicitly code around the problem.
  • ProdigalProdigal Posts: 90
    fogled@mizzou wrote: »
    ...
    but I was wondering if anyone knew of a practical limit on the number of IP connections, for panels and IP_Client devices? Same question, more or less, for timelines.

    Otherwise, these Moxa 4-port units running from a central controller have been "Da Bomb."

    Thanks,

    Don't know about the timelines to be honest, but about the IP Conections the limit per Controller is 250.

    From these 250, there are 25 that are reserved for internal services and other 25 for ip_client/server_open() connections.

    If you have more then 25 ip_client/server_open() connections, these will start to get removed from the remaining 200.

    Pratically you could have a max of 225 ip_client/server_open() IP connections

    Tech Note#909 gives a glimpse about that subject

    TN#909 - http://www.amx.com/techsupport/techNote.asp?id=919
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