ICP DAS - Multiport RS232/422/485 Communication boards

		Introduction

		Features

		Products List

		Selection Guide

The VXC Family--Mulit-port Serial Cards

		Built-in COM-Selector
		Universal PCI (3.3 V and 5 V)
		Up to 128 KB COM port buffer
		Up to 128 bytes hardware FIFO
		Self-tuner Inside
		ESD Protection & Isolation
		Short Card Design
		Various Accessories

The VXC multi-port serial card enables user to increase additional communication ports on the PC. It’s the on-top-of-the-list choice while you are managing to connect lots of outer devices through your PC; every VXC card ensures you fluent communication in both time-critical applications and industrial fields. With simply a VXC card, it has never been that easy for integration of a PC with many other devices, like PLCs, FAB machines, meters, controller devices, laboratory instruments, modems, card readers, serial printers, RFID readers, bar code readers, sensors, etc.

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PCI Express

PCI Express (PCIe) is a computer expansion card standard. A key difference between PCIe and earlier PC buses is a topology based on point-to-point serial links, rather than a shared parallel bus architecture. Concep-tually, the PCIe bus can be thought of as a 'high-speed serial replacement' of the older PCI/PCI-X bus.

COM-Selector

Each VXC card is equipped with a COM-Selector (Dip Switch) for the COM port number selection (automatically or manually). It’s an important and innovative feature for the VXC family.

The COM-Selector provides the following advantages:
Easy COM Port Selection by Dip-Switch

◆ Simplifies the COM port number selection instead of using configuration utility programs.
◆ Users can specify the COM port number of the VXC card as exactly what they want, no matter which PCI slot it is located at.
◆ Automatically selecting an available COM port number is supported by setting the COM-Selector (dip switch) to 0 (default).
◆ No need to install configuration utility and to study its operation for different OS.
◆ Prevents confusion. Other PnP COM port devices easily confuse users because of adopting the dynamic COM port number setting.
◆ Easy replacement of an existing card by setting the dip-switch to be the same COM port number.
◆ Great for mass system installation; since setting the dip-switch to be the same COM port number is very easy.

ESD Protection

The VXC cards offer TVS diode ESD protection technology, protecting your system from being damaged by the high potential voltages.

Under normal operating conditions, the TVS diode presents high impedance (appears as an open circuit) to the protected component. When the voltage is beyond the limits, the TVS diode avalanches providing a low impedance path for the transient current. As a result, the transient current is diverted away from the protected components and shunted through the TVS diode. The device returns to a high impedance state after the transient threat passes.

Self-Tuner

The VXC card is equipped with a "Self-Tuner" chip to control the sending/receiving direction of RS-485 ports automatically.

Without the help of Self-Tuner, users need to enable RS-485 transmitter before sending, and disable the transmitter after finishing sending. The timing to enable and disable transmitter (direction control) is the major issue on many communication problems, and it is very difficult to debug.

The built-in Self-Tuner on VXC cards effectively gets rid of this direction control issue and also simplifies software programming for communication applications.

Isolation

Some VXC cards offer photo isolation to protect your computer and equipment against damages in harsh environment.

Easy COM Port Selection by Dip-Switch

Photo coupler is a device that uses a short optical transmission path to transfer a signal between elements of a circuit, typically a transmitter and a receiver. This keeping them electrically isolated — since the signal goes from an electrical signal to an optical signal, the electrical contact along the path is broken.

It can help cutting down on ground loops, common mode voltages and block voltage spikes, provide electrical isolation, and offer significant protection from serious over-voltage conditions in one circuit affecting the other.

Up To 128 Bytes Hardware FIFO

VXC Cards are equipped with 16 or 128 bytes hardware FIFO for each port. Large hardware FIFO is useful to prevent data lost when your system works on heavy loading, and even helpful while you are running on a multi-task operating system, such as Windows, Linux…etc.

Up To 128 KB COM Port Buffer

The VXC card driver for Windows features an up to 128 KB buffer for each port (default is 4 KB). It’s practical for large file transmission.

Short Card Design

The "Short Card" design is suitable for compact-size computer, especially for IPC (Industrial Personal Computer) and servers.

Universal PCI (3.3 V and 5 V)

The Universal PCI card works with both new 3.3 V PCI bus that has been widely-used in servers, and traditional 5 V PCI bus. The universal PCI or PCI Express interface is now the standard for every new card designed from ICP DAS.

Various Accessories

There are a lot of optional accessories for the VXC cards, such as RS-232 cables and daughter boards. These tools make wiring much easily than ever.

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