I have a board which has max3471 (low power, half duplex, rs485
transceiver).  I use this chip to communicate between the boards (same
boards) over long lines which works wonderfully.  The circuits are on a
3.6V lithium battery.  The interesting thing is that, now that I want to
connect a computer at the end (computer has RS232 to RS485 converter
from B&B) and send messages to them, they each receive the message
correctly and respond.  However, the computer does not "understand" the
response. =20

I have tested the complete software both for the boards and the computer
succesfully.  The only difference being that when I tested I did my
tests with max487 (5V operated, half duplex, rs485 transceiver) on the
boards with ~5V battery voltage.

It is stated on the MAX3471 data sheet that when applied 5V to the chip,
it will "typically meet the RS485 specification".  I tried applying 5V
to the circuit and tried again, that did not work either.  It receives
the message but the computer does not "get" the message.

I need to work with 3.6V, how would I go about communicating the circuit
with the computer?  The first thing came to my mind was to use MAX3471
and some 3.6V operated RS232 connect them together on a board and then
connect that to the computer.  Would this work?

Any help is greatly appriciated (and sorry for the long message),

Omer YALHI
oyalhi@teksan.com.tr

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