Overview – ProSoft Technology WRC-CANX User Manual
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1. Overview
The WRC-CANX Extenders is a family of products that extend the communications cable lengths
for DeviceNet, SDS (Smart Distributed System), J1939, CANopen and other CAN, V2.0, Part A or Part B
serial bus systems. By allowing the user to extend the bus length for any given speed, they assist the user
in cost-effectively implementing I/O or other nodes on these buses at remote locations that would be more
difficult or more expensive to do otherwise.
A WRC-CANX Extender (the family members collectively referred to here as CANX or Extender)
can be connected in a bus trunk line or drop line and is transparent to the other nodes on the bus. It
receives and actively re-transmits (store-and-forward) each message from either side of the network
without interpreting the message or acting upon it.
Each product has two network interfaces with an electrical isolation path between the two. Power
is delivered to the unit through the network connectors. For DeviceNet and SDS systems power is
provided through the 5-conductor bus cable.
A CANX can be used for quite a number of helpful purposes, including
•
to extend the network beyond its absolute maximum length (e.g., 500 meters for
DeviceNet) at the slowest speed
•
to implement a longer network for a given baud rate (e.g., pushing a 500K baud network
beyond 100 m for DeviceNet)
•
to provide higher speed baud rates for a given network length
•
to extend the length of the drop cable (e.g., longer drops than 6 m for DeviceNet)
•
to provide 2600V electrical isolation between the 2 sub-nets
•
to create a unique network topology instead of a conventional bus structure, such as a
star configuration
Figure 1-1 WRC-CANX-DIN-DN Series 4