USB to PCMCIA Card Adaptor for use with Allen Bradley PC Cards

[catserveng]

Anyone have any good experience with a USB to PCMCIA card adaptor and RSLinx? I have tried a couple with poor results, I'm trying to migrate from my old XP laptop with a PCMCIA slot for my DH+, ControlNet and DeviceNet adaptors to a newer Windows 7 Professional laptop.

The current USB to Allen Bradley adaptors are VERY expensive and while I have many systems in the field using older comms hard to plunk down that kind of money.

Thanks, Mike L.

 

[controlsdude]

forget the pcmcia cards if there is a Ethernet card in the rack just drill to that network. And nowadays if its an ab network there are built in pass thrus from ethernet. So quit worrying about this issue.

 

[catserveng]

I guess we operate in different type systems, I have a large number of systems I work on with NO Ethernet (GASP!) Some old DeviceNet systems, some old and still working DH+ networks, and even a few ControlNet based systems where currently my only network access is either a serial port or one of my old PCMCIA cards.

I guess I have a customer base who thinks if its still working and doing the job it was designed too why change it, at least until it absolutely has to be.

Thanks for the reply

 

[FreddyNurk]

Thankfully I've never had to deal with PCMCIA AB card issues, but I've had plenty of success talking to different networks using USB devices, most of them using FTDI serial-USB platforms, including RS232 and RS485. There are plenty of stories of failure using other USB-Serial platforms though.

For what its worth (which probably isn't much in terms of your overall question), I've used these, the US232R-100 specifically, for communications to SLC5 processors without an issue before. They can be bought for around AUD$30 now, I'd expect they're no more expensive in your location.

I've seen enough product datasheets to be aware that DH+ is just that little bit different to RS485 to be a problem, though. I've not seen firsthand exactly what the problem is however.

There are a few Devicenet units around, I'd expect they are cheaper than the brand name AB stuff, though my first instinct was to suggest getting a CAN-USB device (since DeviceNet effectively sits on a CAN network) but I don't know how that'd go for the Devicenet specific layers. Here tends to indicate that CAN-USB devices would be able to support Devicenet, but that's without the assumption that AB might do something fancy so that they don't talk to RSLinx.