B&B Electronics ESR902 User Manual

Manual Documentation Number ESR90x-0508m 

Chapter 1 

3 

B&B Electronics Mfg Co Inc – 707 Dayton Rd - Ottawa IL 61350 - Ph 815-433-5100 - Fax 815-433-5104 – www.bb-elec.com 

B&B Electronics Ltd – Westlink Commercial Park – Oranmore, Galway, Ireland – Ph +353 91-792444 – Fax +353 91-792445 – www.bb-europe.com 

The 

 enable communication with serial devices over a 

LAN or WAN. Serial devices no longer are limited to a physical connection 
to the PC COM port. They can be installed anywhere on the LAN using 
TCP/IP or UDP/IP communications. This allows traditional Windows PC 
software access to serial devices anywhere on the LAN/WAN network.  

 connections allow applications using TCP/IP or UDP/IP socket 

programs to communicate with the asynchronous serial ports on the serial 
server. In this type of application the serial server is configured as a TCP or 
UDP server. The socket program running on the PC establishes a 
communication connection with the 

. The data is sent directly 

to and from the serial port on the server. When using UDP protocol the 
server can be configured to broadcast data to and receive data from multiple 
IP addresses.  

 

 allows the user to add a driver, to provide a virtual 

COM port on the computer. The new COM port shows up in the Device 
Manager. Windows programs using standard Windows API calls are able to 
interface to virtual COM ports. When a program on the PC opens the new 
COM port, it communicates with the remote serial device connected to one 
of the ports on the 

.  

After connection, the LAN is transparent to the program and serial device. 
Applications are able to work just as if the serial device is connected directly 
to a physical COM port on the computer. The virtual COM port software 
converts the application’s data into IP packets, sends it across the network to 
the 

, which converts the IP packet back to serial data and sends 

the data out a serial port located on the 

. 

To use this mode, the 

 must be set to either TCP/server or 

UDP/server with a designated communication port number. The virtual COM 
driver is the TCP or UDP client.  

is also called serial tunneling. In this mode any two serial 

devices that can communicate with a serial link will be able to communicate 
using two 

 and the LAN.