FT232BQ USB UART ( USB - Serial) I.C.
Figure 11
USB <=> RS485 Converter Configuration
FT232BQ
FT232BM
DB9-M
15
VCC
PWREN#
SP481
8
10
25
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
16
3
SLEEP#
TXD
7
6
DM
DP
4
2
1
D
RXD
R
GND
RTS#
CTS#
DTR#
DSR#
DCD#
RI#
5
120R
LINK
TXDEN
Figure 11 illustrates how to connect the UART interface of the FT232BQ to a TTL – RS485 Level Converter I.C. to
make a USB => RS485 converter. This example uses the Sipex SP481 device but there are similar parts available
from Maxim and Analog Devices amongst others. The SP481 is a RS485 device in a compact 8 pin SOP package.
It has separate enables on both the transmitter and receiver. With RS485, the transmitter is only enabled when a
character is being transmitted from the UART. The TXDEN pin on the FT232BQ is provided for exactly that purpose
and so the transmitter enable is wired to TXDEN. The receiver enable is active low, so it is wired to the PWREN# pin
to disable the receiver when in USB suspend mode.
RS485 is a multi-drop network – i.e. many devices can communicate with each other over a single two wire cable
connection. The RS485 cable requires to be terminated at each end of the cable. A link is provided to allow the cable
to be terminated if the device is physically positioned at either end of the cable.
In this example the data transmitted by the FT232BQ is also received by the device that is transmitting. This is a
common feature of RS485 and requires the application software to remove the transmitted data from the received
data stream. With the FT232BQ it is possible to do this entirely in hardware – simply modify the schematic so that
RXD of the FT232BQ is the logical OR of the SP481 receiver output with TXDEN using an HC32 or similar logic gate.
DS232BQ Version 1.8
© Future Technology Devices Intl. Ltd. 2005
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