Serial to Fiber Converters

[Engineer_UA]

Hello,
Is it common and good practice to utilize serial-to-fiber converters when interfacing with a legacy equipment that's only equipped with serial ports? Say, if we need to have two devices communicating with each other. Now, if there were multiple RTU's or PLCs, I think it would be better to use a network switch and converters as required to set up the network topology.
Am I on the right track here?
Thanks,
EE

 

[Helliana]

Depends on what devices, interfaces, and protocol you are trying to convert. It is common to convert a serial connection such as DH485, DH+, MPI, Devicenet, etc to ethernet using a gateway for connectivity to a programming PC, HMI, SCADA, etc.

 

[shawn_75]

Converters in general provide little to no diagnostic data about their connections. Serial converters are usually pretty good about diagnostics information for the serial port. I'd just ensure the converter provides some information about its fiber connection, specifically power level and error counts.

 

[bernie_carlton]

There are also advantages when the signaling line unavoidably passes through electrically noisy areas or if the end points are at widely different ground potentials.