Moxa NPort. These industrial strength IP->RS232 rack mount units WILL NOT disappoint.
Before you freak out at the $1000+ asking price for new, these things are getting yanked out of industrial locations regularly and appear on Ebay.
I've got a nport 5650 32 port in my bar with 100% uptime for almost 3 years and I snagged it off of ebay for $100. I have a over 10 of these installed (all used off ebay) in various locations and have never had a failure or downtime on any of them.
They can handle more simultaneous connections then GlobalCache. The port configuration options are rediculous (Realcom, RFC2117, Reverse Realcom, TCP Server, TCP Client, UDP, Pair Connection Slave & Master, Ethernet Modem, Terminal ASC BIN and SSH, Reverse Terminal, Printer and Dial in/Out) and they use a Cat5 connector which makes for nice clean back of the rack terminations.
Built for harsh environments, Moxa's will laugh at your pansy hot unventilated cabinet installation that the homeowner insisted on. If Moxa's contained urine they wouldn't bother to piss on the overheating Onkyo mounted directly below them without a spacer. If Moxa's could talk they would mock you on your service call to replace a dead Integra because audio products aren't manly enough to be made by Moxa. After you've gone home, Moxa will send you email's to let you know that you f#$ked up the installation. If so inclined, Moxa can email multiple addresses so your boss knows too. Moxa can log to remote servers so it can let the entire internet know of your failure. Moxa can log your 232 traffic by port so you can find out exactly how bad you botched the LG power on command to the master bedroom moments before the homeowner calls to complain that he can't turn the TV on to watch Survivor. Moxa likes to talk so you can get in via HTTP, HTTPS, telnet, and ssh. Most importantly, Moxa knows that your customer shouldn't be touching it's buttons so Moxa can disable it's buttons. FU homeowner don't touch me I'm busy emailing your installers boss and posting to the internet about his incompetence.
[Link: ebay.com]You also might want to take a hard look at CommandFusions hardware. A rack mounted MOD4 (17 RS232 ports) and a LanBridge. Theres scheduling, macros, rules, Slots, Slot Bridging ect built into the LanBridge. (ie, my lanbridge can listen to other devices on the network and react/send commands, schedule events ect). All CF hardware is self discovery on the CFLink network through the lanbridge. I'm using the schedulng to turn on 22 LG televisions (17 w/ 232, 5 w/ IR since LG decided a powered off USB->232 connection was a good idea) at 11am and off at 2am.
The Mod4 has 4 module slots which you can mix and match IR, 232, contact closure, and multiple different types of relays. So, you can have one device replace a IR base station, 232 server and contact closure device.
As for tech support from CF, Jarrod hasn't slept in like three years. His tech support is so bad, last night at 3am he made me wait almost 3 1/2 minutes before responding on skype because I uploaded the wrong firmware to my CF Mini. Then, he had the audacity to remote in and fix it himself.
CF Mod4
[Link: commandfusion.com][Link: commandfusion.com]CF LanBridge
[Link: commandfusion.com]
Last edited by Fiasco on October 2, 2014 07:49.
