My 2 POE Units Arrived today, So I run some quick tests.
My Setup is as follows
USB-RS485 into my PC connected to putty. RS485 connected to Unit 1
USB-RS485 into my PC connected to putty. RS485 connected to Unit 2
I setup some fixed DHCP Leases for both units mac addresses.
I then used VirCom - Device Management to discover the devices on my LAN. They came with default IP address outside my LAN IP subnet, but VirComm found both units, So I grabbed the mac addresses for each (Dev ID) and set IP Mode to DHCP.
On one unit I ensured it was setup as TCP Server (nothing else changed)
On the 2nd unit I ensured it was a TCP Client (work mode), and gave it the IP address of the first unit (server), left the ports and baud etc all as defaults.
At this point this gave me
Putty → USB RS485 → Unit 1 (Server) → Local LAN → Unit 2 (client) → USB RS485 → Putty
So when I typed into one putty window, the key appeared on other other (and visa a versa). This proved that all the comms were working in a stand alone RS485 over TCP/IP.
Next step I connected the RS485 to my logic analyzer so I could check the latency.
In this setup, From start of RS485 data on one unit, to the start of RS485 data on the 2nd Unit (i.e. covers the end to end latency), there is a 3ms (average) delay.
So the conversion and IP transmission is adding about 3ms latency for a byte transmission to reception.
this may or may not be an issue in a particular setup, but timeouts and end to end software MAY need to be checked and tuned
So in conclusion, Yes they can be a stand alone RS485 RS485 over TCP/IP, and yes there is latency introduced in doing so.
Happy to check/test anything else if needed by others.
