Connecting Serial Manufacturing Equipment to an AS/400
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 The Challenge
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Manufacturing environments typify the challenge of today's businesses to contain equipment and communications costs, while maintaining efficient operations. Most manufacturing environments contain a large installed base of costly equipment, from robots to test equipment, much of which uses proprietary protocols.
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Frame Textiles, a large textiles manufacturing corporation, had a number of transponder reader/writers, which, when connected to transponders attached to fabric bales, help monitor and track bales of fabric throughout the facility. These reader/writers could not communicate with their AS/400, since they communicated via an RS485 interface. The AS/400 is connected via Ethernet to their existing LAN. They required a solution, which would allow these transponder reader/writers to communicate to the central AS/400.
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Precidia's Solution |
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Precidia responded to this challenge by placing an Ether232Plus on the textile company's LAN. The Ether232Plus is a '3 in 1' network enabling device, which can connect RS232, RS422 or RS485 devices to IP networks via Ethernet.
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This simple solution, illustrated below, involved connecting the Ether232Plus to the RS485 port on the transponder reader/writer, and connecting the device's Ethernet port to the AS/400's existing Ethernet port. The Ether232Plus device acted as the 'bridge' between the serial device and the AS/400.
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Said Frame Textiles Group Network Manager Charles van der Spuy:
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"We are implementing a system in our fabric warehouse whereby we attach a transponder to each bale (roll) of fabric in order to monitor its whereabouts. There are about 30,000 bales in the warehouse. Our fabric store is under the control of software on our AS/400 system in the factory. In order to communicate with the transponders, we have equipment (reader/writer units) which have RS485 interfaces. As the AS/400 has no idea what an RS485 or RS232 interface is, we had originally planned to communicate via a PC which would be the intermediary between the transponder reader/writer and the AS/400. This would have meant additional software on the PC (to develop, debug & maintain), additional PC's in the field (to maintain, fail, support etc) and development of a protocol to do all this work. After a few unsuccessful attempts we were at our wits end when someone did a search on the web and came up with the Ether232Plus. A little climb up a steep learning curve and the next thing we had serial ports on our AS/400."
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Benefits |
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Frame Textiles realized several benefits by connecting serial equipment to their AS/400 using the Ether232Plus:
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- Improved operating efficiency
Manufacturers see an immediate improvement in operating efficiency following the implementation of the Ether232Plus, with the ability to access equipment across a factory from any PC on the network. This capability improves equipment maintenance and productivity.
- Cost Savings
The low cost Ether232Plus was seamless to the manufacturing environment's existing infrastructure, and required no upgrade or replacement of older, costly equipment. The Precidia device allowed the older equipment to communicate with the AS/400.
- Versatility
By using the '3 in 1' Ether232Plus, future applications for RS232 and RS422 can be easily accommodated.
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Conclusion |
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The Ether232Plus is a versatile '3 in 1' network-enabling device, which seamlessly migrates RS232, RS422 and RS485 equipment to IP, facilitates upgrade of legacy equipment, and consolidates stand-alone terminals.
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Frame Textiles is one of several companies leveraging the Ether232Plus to improve the management of manufacturing equipment.
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| Contact Precidia |
150 Katimavik Road
Suite 1000
Ottawa, Ontario
K2L 2N2, Canada
Tel: 613.592.7557
Fax: 613.482.5770 |
info@precidia.com  |
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