News from B&B Electronics Manufacturing Company 707 Dayton Road P.O. Box 1040 Ottawa IL 61350 (815) 433-5100 FAX (815) 433-5109 For further information, contact: Ross Fosbender at B&B Electronics Manufacturing Co. (815) 433-5100 x241 e-mail: rfosbender@bb-elec.com April 30, 2004 For Immediate Release: Connect Up to Four Legacy Serial Devices to Your Ethernet Backbone 4-Port Serial Server Provides Transparent Ethernet/Serial Connection Ottawa, IL – You’ve got industrial Ethernet throughout your plant now. Your goal is to monitor and control all of your machinery from the central office. And it’s working- all except for those four old presses on aisle C. They’re good machines, but their PLCs speak RS-485 serial and they won’t communicate with your Ethernet LAN. Do you scrap out machines that are producing well, just because they won’t talk to you? Not on your life! A simple and economical 4-port Vlinx Serial Server from B&B Electronics will link them up to your LAN and put their information on a screen in the central office, just like your latest machines. Each of the four DB9M serial ports can be software configured as an RS-232, RS-422 or RS-485 interface. The RJ45 Ethernet connection will auto select 10BaseT or 100BaseTX. When the Vlinx Serial Server is connected to the LAN, you open the included Vlinx management software, click the Searching Server button and it displays all the ports connected to the Model ESP904 transparently. Easily configure, monitor and control any of the connected machines or other devices without leaving your office. A “Heartbeat” feature provides automatic resumption of the data connection in case of a power failure or loss of an Ethernet connection on either the client or server. The Serial Server provides memory of 8K bytes on each serial port. The rugged 4.5 x 7.3 x 1.1 in (11.4 x 18.5 x 2.9 cm) metal case may be either panel or, with an optional adapter kit, DIN Rail mounted. Model ESP904 4-Port Serial Server is $449.95. Call 815-433-5100 or visit www.bb-elec.com for further information or a free catalog. ---END---- Digital text and photos available at http://www.bb-elec.com/press_releases/esp904.html