Desktop PC with a Serial Port?

MorphuisOGrady

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #1

Hi there,

Is it possible to purchase a desktop PC with a Serial port these days?

I have an old Citect SCADA system I need to install on a PC which uses Modbus comms to a Modicon Quantum PLC.

 

geniusintraining

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #2

MorphuisOGrady said:

Hi there,

Is it possible to purchase a desktop PC with a Serial port these days?

I have an old Citect SCADA system I need to install on a PC which uses Modbus comms to a Modicon Quantum PLC.

Click to expand...

Have you check ebay? the last desktops I bought did have serial ports they were Dell's

 

crawler009

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #3

I would buy a regular PC and insert a pci express serial card (if it hasnt one onboard).

We replaced 2 years ago a PC with onboard parallel port with a new one,
adding a pci express parallel port (which had also a serial port) and it worked like a charm.

 

Last edited: Feb 26, 2018

gclshortt

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #4

+1 crawler009

This is also how I ended up getting serial ports.

 

cardosocea

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #5

Funny problems that some people have... some are looking for serial ports, others find parallel ports in half of the computers running the SCADA system on site. LOL

 

Toine

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #6

In my experience it is usually the computer that dies first. If there is a PLC on site that uses serial ports for communication (SCADA or HMI on PC) then you have no choice other than get a new pc with an onboard or added serial port. Onboard is very rare these days, so our usual recipe is as indicated by crawler009.

We have a lot of older systems out there with clients that use serial communication. So we still keep a stock of PCI express serial cards to add to new PC's if a client asks for it. We see more problems with serial communication in recent years. Serial communication in newer systems does not seem to work as well as it used to do on the older systems. I do not know for sure if the root cause for this is in hardware, driver or Windows OS changes.

 

mylespetro

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #7

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but I regularly use a USB-to-serial (RS232) cable to interface between my computer and serial equipment. I'll leave a link below.

https://www.startech.com/ca/Cards-A.../USB-to-RS232-Serial-Adapter-Cable~ICUSB232V2

 

ASF

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #8

One of my clients regularly buys brand new Dell computers with serial ports. They don't buy them off the shelf, of course, they configure them online and order them that way, but you can easily still get them.

 

Plastic

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #9

Please join us in 2018

MorphuisOGrady said:

Hi there,

Is it possible to purchase a desktop PC with a Serial port these days?

I have an old Citect SCADA system I need to install on a PC which uses Modbus comms to a Modicon Quantum PLC.

Click to expand...

I understand you are trying to maintain your "Old Citect SCADA system".

My suggestion: As opposed to trying to down shirt and adapt to obsolete communications strategies. (spending new money to stay in the past)

Why not aggressively update the SCADA system with products that can be supported with hardware and software that would be understood by a new employee that just came from an up to date learning institution?

My $0.02

Plastic

 

the_msp

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #10

Yes, we still even buy some XP compatible m'boards, from a UK company called Amplicon

 

CaspianSage

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #11

HP still sells workstations with serial ports.

 

bkottaras

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #12

Lenovo Think Stations (workstations) do come with a serial port.

 

Sydney

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• Feb 26, 2018

• #13

Support for obsolete equipment.

Plastic said:

My suggestion: As opposed to trying to down shirt and adapt to obsolete communications strategies. (spending new money to stay in the past

Plastic

Click to expand...

There are a lot of companies that have no interest in updating their equipment.

MorphuisOGrady

My suggestion is to buy an older refurbished laptop. You can find them on Ebay for decent prices, under $200. I keep a couple around running XP3 and Window 7 to support older hardware. Most if not all have serial ports.

Regards,
Sydney

 

Last edited: Feb 26, 2018

cottagewood

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• Feb 27, 2018

• #14

Google min-itx
they do fanless pc's, the jetway range comes with a serial port.

I also have several Citect pc's using usb serial adaptors which work reliably

 

wlr3m4

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• Feb 27, 2018

• #15

Get a Moxa USB to Serial converter. It is the best serial converter in the industry, it allowed me to connect to every kind of serial device when I was setting up Power Monitoring.