Pcmk card?

[bright676]

Is there any advantage of using this type of of communication cable/card? If so, what are they?

 

[DamianInRochester]

I can give you a lot of disadvantages. It won't run on a 64 bit machine. Even in a 32 bit emulator. It is not supported in recent OS versions. Unless you already have one, you are better off getting the USB based units out there. For DH485 there are a handful of super cheap adapters that work just fine. For DH+ there are a couple very expensive ones. If you need it you'll just have to shell out. I don't know anyone who ever used it to connect to RIO (including myself) so I can't comment much on that.

All this, and not to mention that the PCMCIA port is becoming just as hard to find as the 9 pin serial port on a PC. So much so that virtualization companies like VMWare don't even bother to support them.

I can't think of one advantage over the USB ones.

 

[DaveW]

I can't think of one advantage over the USB ones.

The disadvantages you mentioned are all true but I like the PCMK because it's smaller size and you get the DH+ and DH485 (and RIO for whatever reason) all in one compact package minus the flimsy cable connection. I was disappointed in the size of the USB's and the fact that AB separate out the DH+ and DH485. They should be able to to shrink these down to the size of a flash drive but I guess they're better than some of the old stuff like the KF2 and KF3.

 

[Andy6]

No real advantages as Damian said.

The only thing I could think of would be having DH+ and 485 with the same card. Less to carry around. Although youll need the 2 cables.

 

[bright676]

Thanks for the reply. The reason I ask is I want to buy a spare cable for our SLC 500s and a couple of micro logix 1200s but the A/B price is $500.00.

It would be great to be able to use just a usb to connect to the lap top.

Do you have any recommendations on what cable to buy and what ever else I would need to just use the usb port on the lap top?

Thanks

 

[Ken Roach]

If your SLC-5/0x and MicroLogix controller serial ports are configured for DF1 Full Duplex protocol (which is the default) then you can use an inexpensive general-purpose USB/RS232 converter.

The one I use is the Keyspan USA-HS19. You'll find it's highly recommended here on the Forum.

If you need to use DH485 protocol on a serial port or network port, or if you need DH+ to the network port of an SLC-5/04, you will need a different device like the 1747-UIC or the 1784-U2DHP, or that old PCMK card and matching cable.