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4-20mA to optical fibre converter

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chop

Electrical
Mar 14, 2001
12
Does someone knows a product that can receive some analog(4-20mA) and digital inputs, multiplex them, send them trough optical fibre and at the other end of the fiber, reconvert them in analog and digital signals.

Help will be appreciate.

Regards,
 
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You might check First step is to convert your inputs to digital and then multiplex them over a single serial port, RS-232 or RS-485. The conversion back and forth to fiber is straightforward. There are a lot of converters to do this on the market.

You can do this with a wide variety of programmable logic controllers as well.

For fiber, you should plan on a dedicated pair of fibers.

Good luck, and hope this helps.
 
As far as the comms part of the question, I used a pair of modules from Phoenix Digital Corp. for fiber-based communications from PLCs to Remote I/O racks on an A-B PLC-5 system. As far as a stand-alone system goes with I/O at either end, I don't know. From what I understand, Phoenix Digital makes products to serve a wide variety of industrial control platforms, but the user has to supply the intelligence at either end to convert to/from I/O. Check out their website at Maybe they have something you can use.
 
A company called Eurotherm makes a product called Link. It uses fiber optic cables to connect various modules together. I have used it a number of times. They have analog modules, digital modules that have both inputs and outputs. The Link I style uses 24Vdc as a power supply. The modules not only can handle the analog (5 ins 1 out) and digital (12 in or out) signals but also are fully programable computers with a complete set of function blocks available and can operate as a fully functional control system if you want. The modules are fairly small and mount on DIN rail. They also have a Link II system which is much more powerful and uses 120Vac and plug-in digital (16 in or outs) and analog (8 in 2 out) cards. Call 800-279-0102 for more information.
 
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