After the invention of the USB protocol, we can hardly see any serial devices these days. For this reason of modern transfer systems, most manufacturers no longer add a serial port on a laptop, desktop computers, or modern devices.

Therefore, devices like serial printer, scale, barcode scanners, serial consumer/ industrial devices, GPS, surveillance cameras all have one thing in general and that is they all use serial cable connections such as RS232, RS422, or RS485 to interact with a computer.

Establishing remote access to this set of a device from a remote computer is the trouble that I thought to describe to you how you can get rid of it. Don't worry, a serial-to-Ethernet converter enables you to connect most serial devices to an Ethernet port which you can directly use on your computer or switch or a network router and control that device.

Definition of Serial to Ethernet converter

A serial to Ethernet converter is a small size device that is sometimes known as a serial device server, a serial over TCP/IP server, or simply a terminal server. However, all these names are just different names for the same kind of device that fundamentally converts serial (RS232, RS422, or RS485) data to Ethernet packets and Ethernet packets to serial (RS232, RS422, or RS485) data bi-directionally.

It can be utilized as a wireless converter also if the IP/TCP data packets are transmitted over the IEEE 802.11a/b/g network link. The converter redirects a serial device over the network. Hence it eliminates the necessity for its physical connection to a computer. The serial to Ethernet converter has its unique IP address. That is the reason, it is often referred to as a server.

Working process of serial to Ethernet converters

First of all, when you purchase a serial to ethernet converters, together with the hardware you perceive a driver software that requires to be installed on your computer. The program works for creating virtual COM ports on the computer as soon as the hardware is connected.

 

All the virtual serial ports are created with the assistant of the device's software arrive in your computer's Device Manager as local items.

This approach, any COM port implanted in a serial to Ethernet hardware can be displayed in a remote computer as if it was its own physical port.

Now, every time you connect a serial device to a COM port of your serial to Ethernet converter, the peripheral is redirected to the virtual serial port of your computer. Now it gets recognized by your computer as a local device. 

Setting up a Serial to Ethernet converter

Install the driver

Most serial to ethernet converter systems come with virtual COM port drivers added. You have to install it on your computer before you can begin using the converter. Once the installation process is finished, the virtual COM software will immediately be capable to create a virtual COM port in your computer's Device Manager at the time the hardware is connected to the computer.

Set up the hardware

To set up a serial to Ethernet converter, simply connect the Ethernet cable, the serial cable, and the power supply adapter.

Configuring the settings

After finishing all the steps said earlier, you can begin configuring the converter. Almost all the converters however serve directly out of the box because it will automatically detect the serial interface you are using with all other settings.

If you, however, need to configure the default settings then you can log in to the converters administration panel. You can sometimes log in to the units admin panel by accessing the virtual COM software, nevertheless mostly it is quicker and simpler to use a web browser.

Just enter the default IP address of that converter in your browser address bar and you will see to your serial to ethernet converter's admin login page. Now you will be able to configure your converter based on your preferences. You can find more information on https://www.pusr.com.