RS485 Isolator

Name: RS485 Isolator
SKU: 7616
Price: 22.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5.00 (1 reviews)

(1 Review)

Galvanically isolated RS-485 line transceiver

Designed by LeoNerd's Store in United Kingdom

2016-10-13T22:32:31.167Z-rs485isolator-sch.png

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Galvanically isolated RS-485 line transceiver

Summary RS485 half-duplex line driver 1kV galvanic isolation What is it? This little board acts much like the familiar Maxim MAX481 or MAX485 chips, providing a half-duplex RS485 line transmitter a…

Summary

RS485 half-duplex line driver
1kV galvanic isolation

What is it?

This little board acts much like the familiar Maxim MAX481 or MAX485 chips, providing a half-duplex RS485 line transmitter and receiver. It adds in addition a 1kV galvanic isolation barrier that allows a logic signal to pass to and from the line driver chip, while electrically separating it. This lets the RS485 line operate at a different electrical potential - useful if the line has to travel some distance, especially between buildings or if there's a potential for different systems running on different electrical power phases. This is often used in stage equipment that uses DMX-512 for example.

Why did you make it?

I've been building a lot of DMX-512-controlled equipment. A DMX receiver is ideally supposed to be electrically isolated from the sender, to avoid electrical issues across stages. It's also useful whenever the line has to travel a long distance; which is typically where RS485 is most used.

What makes it special?

Unlike most of the other RS485 driver modules you tend to find, this one combines the power and logic isolation elements right there on the board, giving a complete RS485 handling in one convenient place.

If you're looking for an isolated RS485 line driver with an onboard microcontroller, perhaps to contain an entire application, or at least offload the serial line communication of a larger project into a module that could be attached by SPI or I²C, you might instead be interested in the RS485 Isolated ATtiny814 Board or RS485 Isolated ATtiny841 Board products.

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Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (5.00)

Documentation: (5.00)

Shipping: (5.00)

Communication: (5.00)

Alwyn | July 14, 2022

Works as described!

Bought a couple of these as DMX transceivers, and they work very nicely! Highly recommended! Just some feedback if a new revision is being considered: It would be nice to be able to control the receiver rather than having it continuously available through tying /RE line to ground by design. Perhaps add a couple of solder pads so that the user can decide to either tie /RE to ground or tie /RE to DE (making it always one or the other), or bring the control to a separate terminal on P1. In addition, it would be useful to bring out the Y and Z pins to P2 separately too, with perhaps solder pads to put them in parallel with A and B should the user want that. Just some thoughts on an otherwise excellent product!

Response from LeoNerd's Store | July 15, 2022

Ah yes - some good ideas there. Perhaps I'll bring them out on solder pads rather than through-holes, in order to keep the same footprint. By default wired up through to where they go now, but if people want to do something else with them, just break a jumper and solder something else to the pad.