cFP and serial ports

[Mike-g]

Hello,

I'm just starting to evaluate cFP for a project. This project will require controlling at least 8 devices via RS-232. I see that the cFP-2020 has 3 serial ports. Is it possible to extend the number of serial ports on a cFP? I can't find any mention of an RS-232 module.

Thanks

Mike

[Aaron_G]

Mike,

There are no serial port IO modules. However, with LabVIEW RT 7.0 and higher, you can use National Instruments ENET-232 and ENET-485 units to increase the number of serial ports.

Regards,
Aaron

[Mike-g]

Aaron,

Thanks for that. Shame that there are no serial IO modules. We'd wanted to incorporate the cFP in our own enclosure along with our hardware and have just one enthernet connection, (with one IP number), to the whole lot. I'll take a look at the ENET-232 but I presume we'll need to assign each ENET-232 device with a separate IP number. So, if we're using 1 CFP and 2 ENET-232's we'll need to assign 3 IP numbers. Oh well!

Thanks for the help.

Regards

Mike

[Aaron_G]

Mike,

If you place a router inside your enclosure, you can have one external IP address which is presented to the outside world as the box IP address and have three internal IP addresses (one for the cFP and two for the ENET-232s).

The inter-module communication bus on FP/cFP was designed for single point style readings rather than buffered acquistion type readings. Thus, I personally doubt that NI will bother with making a FP/cFP Serial module especially as the ENET-232 and ENET-485 boxes are already supported natively through LabVIEW.

Regards,
Aaron

[Mike-g]

Aaron

I was thinking of a router too.

Thanks for reinforcing that view.

regards

Mike