Question about PWRFLEX Drives

Hey there all.
I have question regarding Powerflex drives. I have a bunch of drives on ethernet. What I am wondering is why do the drives plug directly into a switch with a straight thru patch cord and are completly visible to linx, 5000 and drive tools. Yet to go plug my laptop into the drive I use a 1203-USB converter. I know I cant directly connect ethernet from drive to laptop even with a crossover cable, why?

I'm not familiar with the "1203-USB converter" you mentioned, but I've never had an issue connecting my laptop directly to a Powerflex drive equipped with an Ethernet card. I've not had to use a crossover cable either.

What drives are you having problems with exactly?

I fell kind of silly now. I just realized taht I was trying to plug my eithernet connection into the programming port of the drive. To do this you must use the 1203-USB converter since this is not an ethernet port. But I can plug my laptop into the ethernet card with no issues. Sorry for asking a question that really is not valid.

You're probably talking about PowerFlex 40-series drives, which have an RJ-45 style port onboard.

That port is for 'Drive Serial Interface' (DSI), which is a superset of Modbus RTU protocol, connected using RS-485 signalling.

Because RJ45 connectors are so commonly used for Ethernet, it's a common mistake to assume that they are Ethernet. This could be especially confusing when the drives are equipped with a 22-COMM-E module which has an Ethernet port on one side, and a DSI port (a flat ribbon cable) on the other.

You might think it's a silly question, but it really doesn't matter.
What matters is if you're silly enough to ask it again in the future ;-)