XPL Rail 4M – 48500

This member of the product family comes with the following features:

• one configurable serial physical channel
• RS-485 line driver (2 wire)
• DIP switch for serial configuration
• optical feedback of data transfer with two LEDs for Rx and Tx
• persistant storage of configuration
• support for multiple standard network protocols
  (DNS, DHCP, Auto-IP, TCP/IP, HTTP, IGMP, ICMP, IPv4-Multicast, UPnP, Raw-Socket, Telnet, RFC2217)
• additional grid power output terminals with integrated powerline filter
• simple mounting on standard DIN rails
• encrypted communication via powerline (HomePlug AV)
• Touch button for easy encryption setup and device factory defaults
• integrated client for internet portal connectivity (to ease device setup within the local network)
• RESTful JSON-based API for 3rd-party software

The serial settings (baudrate, databits…) can be controlled with the  DIP switch array. This is useful to avoid misconfiguration when the attached RS-485 bus members operate with fixed parameters. Thus you need physical access to the device to switch the settings and it’s not possible to accidentally switch it from the device’s web frontend.

However, with a special DIP switch configuration, it is possible to transfer the control of the serial port settings to the device firmware, or to even allow a remote device to switch the serial port settings on-the-fly. This can be useful for devices operating at different speeds or if switching speed is part of the communication protocol.

This device is well-suited for a standalone setup like making a RS-485 bus available within the local network. This can be accomplished by installing a virtual serial COM port client on the PC. As the I2XPLR4-48500 supports multiple communications protocols (RAW, Telnet, RFC2217) it can be easily configured to fit every environment.

But also point-to-point scenarios are setup within minutes: configure two or more devices to share the same virtual serial channel and you’re done. There is no manual setup of remote IP addresses etc. necessary, since the data is transfered via IP multicast: real plug and play for best user experience.