It's easy in theory - until you see our comms cabinet! There are 200+
cat5 network cables coming out of a hole in the wall running into a
stack of interconnected hubs/switches (NB: None of these are labeled as
to where they have come from, of course. Oh no - That would be too
easy!). So, we're either looking at a whole new re-cabling job for the
building (no chance!), testing each and every cable with some sort of
testing meter to find the right one, or sticking with RJ45 and TCP.
Besides, what fun would RS485 be? ;)

For those that are in IT - we've probably all see comms cabinets from
hell, and this is no exception (so before a sub-topic gets going here -
I'm chiming in with my war story!)

Stuart

-----Original Message-----
From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf
Of Gerhard Fiedler
Sent: 16 September 2004 14:41
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: Re: [PIC] Networking PIC's

> I agree that other media/protocols are much more viable (serial, etc)
but
> the reason for choice of RJ45 and TCP was that RJ45 sockets are
already
> in situ where the devices need to go. These would easily be converted
if
> it wasn't for the age old problem of an un-maintained comms cabinet!
> (a.k.a. the rats nest!).

I may very well miss something obvious here, but you are talking about
RJ45
-- and RS485 for example runs well over those plugs (and Ethernet
cable),
right? It also seems less work to find those connections in a comms
cabinet
(if they are connected somewhere to an Ethernet hub) and connect them
appropriately than implementing Ethernet and a TCP protocol stack?

But less fun, maybe... :)

Gerhard
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