Brainboxes, a leader in serial
and Bluetooth connectivity, today launched its new range of PCI Express
(PCIe) RS422/485 serial cards. The RS422/485 high speed cards have been
engineered in-house by the Brainboxes technical team and are for use in
industrial automation devices, Point of Sale systems and ATM cash
machines. The RS422/485 cards are manufactured in the UK and will be
available from Brainboxes and their resellers and distributors
worldwide this month.

The RS422/485 boards are an addition to the PCIe RS232 range Brainboxes
launched in January 2008, but provide higher speed operation and
connections up to 4,000 feet., using noise resistant differential pair
driver/recievers. Each serial port has 128 byte FIFOs, 1 MegaBoard data
transfers, with on board Hardware and Software flow control.

RS422 and RS485 are bus systems and up to 32 standard load or 128 low
load devices per port can be connected. RS422 is supported with
dedicated pairs for TxD, RxD, RTS and CTS signals. RS485 systems are
supported in both Full Duplex mode using 2 pairs of wires and in Half
Duplex mode using 1 pair of wires. The Half Duplex mode uses Brainboxes
proven 485 Autogating circuitry for automatically turning the line
around from receive to transmit and back again whenever the PC needs to
send data to devices.

Eamonn Walsh, Chairman and founder of Brainboxes stated “These products
have been designed to meet the continual demand for high reliability
422/485 serial connections in the Industrial Sectors. For example:

Europe’s leading manufacturers of games machines uses Brainboxes’
RS422/485 cards for touch screen video gaming. The cards connect
several machines and link back to a server in the back office, creating
a simple network which is ideal for transmitting data over long
distances and in noisy environments.
A Brainboxes’ broadcast customer, which specialises in bespoke
development in key TV & video technologies including teletext and
subtitling, has its server connected up to broadcast automation systems
via Brainboxes RS422/485 cards. These bring together the equipment such
as the editing suite, video tapes, sound and interactive services, with
teletext, before broadcast via transmitters into homes by the BBC, ITV
and Cable TV stations. ”

The range of cards comprises of 1, 2 and 4 port cards with opto
isolation options available, and are supplied with an installation CD
including manual, Microsoft signed drivers & utilities. Brainboxes
is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner and these cards are compatible
with 32 bit and 64 bit editions of Windows Server 2008, Vista, XP,
Server 2003 and 2000. It also comes with Brainboxes’ acclaimed Serial
Solutions software, which is installed in hundreds of thousands of
systems worldwide and is recognised to provide industry leading
stability and reliability.