B&B Electronics 232BSS4 Buffered Smart Switch

The B&B Electronics 232BSS4 Four-Port Buffered Smart Switch is a serial-splitter that lets a single RS-232 master port communicate with up to four slave devices. Each port has its own dedicated UART and buffering, delivering an 8 KB transmit buffer and an 8 KB receive buffer per port, enabling independent per-port configuration of data rate, format, and protocol up to 115.2 kbps. Data routing is controlled by three- or four-character command strings, with the control sequences stripped from the data stream to keep communications transparent to the slave devices; the Master port can talk to a single Slave port, broadcast to multiple Slave ports, or be configured for two-way exchanges with a single Slave port at a time. The unit can be cascaded to expand beyond four ports, and two units can be connected back-to-back to link devices over a single data channel. A 12 VDC power supply is required (sold separately) with a 2.5 mm positive-tip plug, and LEDs indicate power status and the currently selected port. Setup software is provided on CD and supports Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista.