DNF Controls today announced that Greenwood, S.C.-based Fuji Photo Film, Inc., the North American manufacturing and R&D headquarters of the Fujifilm family of companies, has purchased The Analyst RS422/RS232 Tester to help streamline communications between production machines.  

"We were looking for an effective tool that could help us troubleshoot communications problems between our two production machines and quickly determine which communications link was causing the problem," said Fuji Photo Film Electrical Engineer James Hawthorne. "The Analyst works with both RS422 and RS232 control interfaces, and having a single device that can analyze both types of serial protocols is a great benefit. As far as I know, it is the only product out there that meets our requirements."

Fuji Photo Film's production machine sends serial data from a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) to a thermal printer that only communicates with RS232 cable. Because the cable length between the devices is greater than 50 feet, the PLC sends the data via RS422 cable to an RS422/RS232 converter mounted on the thermal printer. If the two devices fail to communicate properly with each other, it could potentially take hours to identify the problem.

RS232 and RS422 control interfaces are standard on most equipment found in broadcast or production facilities, as well as on other devices like Fuji's PLC and thermal printer. Because these interfaces can be so time-consuming and frustrating to troubleshoot, DNF Controls designed The Analyst RS422/RS232 Tester as an easy-to-use, intuitive, troubleshooting tool that enables experts and non-experts alike to separate "what is the problem" from "what is not the problem" quickly. This allows resources to be directed at fixing the real problem, rather than running around in circles.