RS232 to Ethernet adapters

[martymonster]

Has anyone used a RS232 to Ethernet adapter to connect a PC in one room to a Minder/C-Bus installation in a seperate room?

I hate having to take the laptop downstairs to the power room. I would like to leave the PC/Laptop in the study for convenience.

If an ethernet converter worked, then I could connect any of my home PCs or laptops to Minder/C-Bus.

Martin

[rhamer]

Yep, have a look at this thread

http://www.cbusforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=662

Regards

Rohan

[Frank Mc Alinden]

Hi Guys
I use the MSS 100 Lantronix device to connect my serial devices to my network...These are second hand devices which can be bought for around 60 quid or $150.00 from the UK......... I have five in use at the moment and they work great...Just connected one to a cbus pc interface and was able to open
the version 2 software as well as version 1.5 of cgate using com4 as the redirector doesnt allow you to use 1 to 3......Also there are lots of 20 of these devices currently being auctioned on ebay starting at 200 pounds ..which is about 25 dollars each..........

http://www.laser.com/

Frank

[Tom Kecil]

Has anyone used a RS232 to Ethernet adapter to connect a PC in one room to a Minder/C-Bus installation in a seperate room?

I hate having to take the laptop downstairs to the power room. I would like to leave the PC/Laptop in the study for convenience.

If an ethernet converter worked, then I could connect any of my home PCs or laptops to Minder/C-Bus.

Martin

Marty, not sure if you want something this simple, but I had exactly the same challenge: All I wanted to do was avoid taking a laptop to the power room to connect to my Minder, only I didn't have any plans to run an ethernet network to that part of the house.

As I was running cat5 for CBus I simply ran an extra length of it from the power room to the spot where my PC sits. I terminated both with an RJ12 wallplate (I figured if they can be CBus or Ethernet then why not something else entirely ;) ). Then at each end I made (yes soldered) a lead out of cat 5 with an RS232 plug on one end and an RJ12 connector on the other. The most pricy part is two wallplates! Of course the RS232 plug has 9 pins and Cat5 has 8 cores so one pin had to miss out... I remember looking up the standard pin-out for RS232 and one of them seemed even more superfluous for simple serial communication than the others so I left it out and it all worked first go. Theoretically you could get away with fewer cores still - send/receive and ground?

[martymonster]

Thanx Tom, but I think I will get a Digi One SP interface

marty

[dbuckley]

The lowest cost off-the-shelf solution to connecting a PC to a serial device over telnet is about 110USD, consisting of a SitePlayer telnet box, and a Haxxio UDP Serial Port Redirector.

http://www.siteplayer.com
http://www.haxxio.com/udpser

Notice of affiliation - I'm the author of the haxxio product, so my opinion is not exactly unbiassed!