National Instruments FP-1001 - Manual (Page 10)

© National Instruments Corporation 1-1 FieldPoint FP-1000/FP-1001 User Manual
Chapter
1
FP-1000 and FP-1001
Network Module Overview
This chapter provides an overview of the FieldPoint network modules.
The FP-1000 FieldPoint network module connects an industrial RS-232
network to FieldPoint I/O modules. The FP-1001 FieldPoint network
module connects an industrial RS-485 network to FieldPoint I/O
modules.
The FP-1000 and FP-1001 support standard commands (subset of
Optomux command set), and a set of extended commands to completely
support the FieldPoint I/O modules. Both network modules can co-exist
with other Optomux devices on the same network.
The FP-1000 and FP-1001 use the Optomux protocol. Therefore, after
you have configured the FieldPoint bank (network module and I/O
modules), you can use any application software that supports Optomux
to communicate with FieldPoint modules in the bank.
In a distributed application, many FieldPoint banks are networked
together. You can network up to 25 FieldPoint banks to each
RS-232/RS-485 port of your host computer. Each bank can contain up
to nine I/O modules, thus connecting up to 225 I/O modules per RS-232
(or RS-485) port in your host computer. You can further increase your
field I/O count by using more RS-232/RS-485 ports in your host
computer.
FP-1000 Connects to RS-232
The FP-1000 connects directly to the RS-232 port that is available on
most host computers. Since RS-232 is a point-to-point network that
allows connection to only one device, the FP-1000 provides an RS-485
repeater so that you can build a network with multiple FieldPoint banks.