4-port RS232 PCI comms card with surge protection

February 2002 Electrical Power & Protection

A four-port RS232/422/485 PCI communication card is available which is compatible with the PCI 2.1 bus specification. The PCI-1610A/B from Advantech provides four optional surge protection ports to protect the system against surges up to 2500 V d.c.

The card provides transmission speeds of up to 921,6 Kbps, and high performance 16PC1954 UARTs with 128-byte FIFO to reduce the CPU load, making the card reliable and ideally suited for multi-tasking environments.

A convenient utility program is included allowing users to test the card's performance by analysing the port's status, while easy- to-use menu commands and toolbar buttons make operation simple. Advantech's ICOM tools act as a PC-based data scope allowing the user to set a trigger condition, capture the communication data and monitor the signal status.

The communication card maps to just 16 KB of system memory and the user can choose between six addresses from C8000 to DC000. Various IRQ options are available and LEDs monitor the TxD/RxD status of all ports. The card is capable of linking to peripherals up to 1,2 m from the controller.

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