Chapter 1 FP-1000/1001 Network Module OverviewFieldPoint FP-1000/1001 User Manual1-2 ©National Instruments CorporationThe FP-1000/1001 supports standard commands (subset of Optomuxcommand set) and a set of extended commands to completely supportthe FieldPoint I/O modules. Both network modules can co-exist withother Optomux devices on the same network.The FP-1000/1001 uses the Optomux protocol. Therefore, after youhave configured the FieldPoint bank (network module and I/Omodules), you can use any application software that supports Optomuxto communicate with FieldPoint modules in the bank.In a distributed application, many FieldPoint banks are networkedtogether. You can network up to 25 FieldPoint banks to eachRS-232/RS-485 port of your host computer. Each bank can contain upto nine I/O modules, thus connecting up to 225 I/O modules per RS-232(or RS-485) port in your host computer. You can further increase yourfield I/O count by using more RS-232/RS-485 ports in your hostcomputer.FP-1000 Connects to RS-232The FP-1000 connects directly to the RS-232 port that is available onmost host computers. Because RS-232 is a point-to-point network thatallows connection to only one device, the FP-1000 provides an RS-485repeater so that you can build a network with multiple FieldPoint banksby connecting one or more FP-1001s to a single FP-1000.FP-1001 Connects to RS-485The FP-1001 FieldPoint network module connects directly to anyRS-485 adapter card installed in your host computer, or to the RS-485repeater port of an FP-1000. Because RS-485 is inherently a multidropnetwork, the FP-1001 does not provide a separate RS-485 repeater. Youcan network multiple FP-1001 modules in multidrop fashion.The FP-1001 communicates over RS-485, utilizing full-duplex mode. Itis optically isolated, which prevents fault coupling between the RS-485network and the FP-1001.
