[BC] Long serial connections

[Cowboy]

On Thursday 05 March 2009 11:03 am, Evan Elrod wrote:
>  Hello,
>  Quick question...
>  
>  What is the longest serial/com port run that will still work?

 The standard references 50 feet.
 In practice, if the levels are not dropped too much by the
 resistive losses of the wire, and the edges of the bits are
 not rounded too much by the roll off of the wire, it'll go
 almost indefinitely.

>  Any one have experience with long runs like this?

 Yep !
 Start with good wire, like Cat-5 and balance the connections.
 ( say, white-blue send, blue white ground, and white-orange
 receive, orange white ground )
 Since RS-232 is an unbalance protocol, there are still limits
 since you can't truly balance the signals without some additional
 tricks.
 If that doesn't work, then check levels. If low, an amp
 might solve the problem.

-- 
Cowboy