Diamond Systems DS-MPE-SER4OPT : DS-MPE-OPT4M22 4-Port Opto-Isolated Serial MiniCard with 2x RS-232 and 2x RS-485

Plenty of embedded systems talk to two kinds of serial equipment at once: a point-to-point RS-232 device on one side and an RS-485 network on the other. The DS-MPE-OPT4M22 is the mixed-protocol build in the Diamond Systems DS-MPE-SER4OPT series, an opto-isolated serial MiniCard that provides two RS-232 and two RS-485 ports from one full-size PCIe MiniCard socket.

A quad XR17V354 UART with a PCIe interface drives all four ports, each 16C550 compatible with 256-byte transmit and receive FIFOs and an SP336 multi-mode transceiver. The RS-232 ports run at up to 1 Mbps and the RS-485 ports at up to 10 Mbps. Because the card sits in the MiniCard socket, the host keeps its PC/104 or PCIe/104 stack for other I/O.

Protocols on the DS-MPE-OPT4M22 are configured in pairs, so one pair is RS-232 and the other RS-485, with jumper-selectable termination on the RS-485 side. Each pair is isolated by up to 500 V from system ground using integrated isolated power and data components and an insulation film on the underside. Two miniature latching connectors carry two ports each, and the CK-SER4M cable kit is included. The DS-MPE-OPT4232 is all RS-232, and the DS-MPE-OPT4485 is all RS-485.

Power is 3.3 V DC at 0.462 W. The DS-MPE-OPT4M22 operates from -40 to 85 °C at 5 to 95% humidity, non-condensing, and Diamond Systems can custom-configure it with 0 ohm resistors in place of jumpers for high-vibration installations. Drivers support Windows 7, XP, Vista and 2000 and Linux 2.6 kernels, and the card is RoHS compliant.