Is there such a thing as "off the shell" cables that have RJ45's on one end, and 232 (IBM 9-Pin) on the other?
Kind of, there's the adapters that Cisco routers use, but you have to wire them yourself (at least the ones I've gotten here in Germany). I've used them as DB9->RJ45 adapters for an ISDN connection, but they are intended as serial adapters, as you request.
Same thing with a 485 on the other end?
RS485 is electrically different, it's differential instead of absolute voltages. A simple cable will not do, you'll need level conversion.
I'm designing a box with a serial interface and don't want have to design the cable as well, if I don't have to.
You'll have to put in RS485 drivers at least. My recommendation: Don't use the cheap Texas 75LBC176 chips, they hardly reach the performance of the Maxim chips. Although I'm not into spending much money on semiconductors at all, RS485 is the one topic where I recommend spending a little more for the reliability of the product. RS485 is designed for long cables, high baudrates and high noise immunity. The Texas chips don't have the latter, very little noise gets them confused easily.
ciao, -- Jens Sch�nfeld
-- Author: Jens =?iso-8859-1?Q?Sch=F6nfeld?= INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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