Introduction.
Moxa's popular series of NPort serial port servers and ioLogik I/O modules are now combined in one model, with or without wireless WiFi. With 1 or 2 RS-232/422/485 serial ports and 6 or 12 digital I/O.
2 in 1 - Easy to use - But why this new model?
Even though the serial port is many years old, you'd be surprised how much it is still used. Typically when you want to communicate with older machines or devices, but you also see new devices that have a serial port. This is due to the simple and inexpensive way you can create a serial port, simply put a line driver in front of your internal CPU and you're up and running, it doesn't take much.
The serial port can typically be RS232 for shorter distances or RS422 or RS485 for slightly longer distances or if you need to communicate with several decentralized devices from the same master.
With Moxa's NPort, you move the serial port away from your computer or PLC and use the existing Ethernet as a connection. This way, you can reach longer distances without having to run cables, provided Ethernet is available. It doesn't have to be wired, it can also be wireless WiFi. And if you include the Internet, you can get really far, it's only the response times that you need to be aware of, which are slightly slower than with direct wiring.
But is it enough to be able to communicate with the device via the serial port? In some cases it's not. Here you also need the ability to measure or control digital or analog inputs and outputs. This is easily done by mounting an E1200 module next to your NPort, controlled via Modbus/TCP.
But it's two devices, why not merge the NPort with the I/O module, so there's only one device to keep track of, so you only need to set the functions you want in one device.
This new model is designed to cover those tasks where you need an NPOrt and an I/O module, now you can have them all in one module. And not only that, one model is available with a built-in WiFi client, so suddenly you have three devices in one. This saves both space in the cabinet and time during installation, as you don't have to run as many cables internally.
MTConnect.
Is an open and simple communication standard for communication between production equipment at OT level and monitoring software at IT level. It is defined as read-only as it can only read data from a device and cannot write data to a device.
On an IT level it can be difficult to relate to the many different protocols, Moxa's new NPort IA5000A-I/O and NPort IAW5000A-I/O series supports MTConnect, it has MTConnect Agent and Adapter built in. Status can be read directly from a MTConnect client.
How can I find out more (useful links)?
- Yes, please contact me for further details (send by email).
- Call us at 4485 8000