Floppy Drive Replacement and connect it via Ethernet

[PeaceOnline]

Hello.

I come from a german company and we want to your Floppy to USB Emulators.
But i have some questions.
(Sorry for my english)

We have some Trumpf Press Brakes with a "LR102061" Floppy Drive from CITIZEN.
(720k Disks 80/9)

Now we want to change the old Floppy Drive with your Emulator.
Then we want to connect all drives to the RJ-45 LAN.
Is it possible to read and write over Ethernet?

In the manual "http://www.plrelectronics.com/3-and-A-Half-USB-Reader-Manual.pdf"
on page 13 there is the network system.
It shows "one" network drive with four floppy drives connected. (via junction box)
Is it really possible to connect more floppy drives to "one" network drive?
(because on the info page of the network drive i can read this:
"ONE DEVICE REQUIRED PER FLOPPY TO USB DRIVE YOU WANT TO NETWORK")

And is it right, that the computer has to have a COM Port to connect to the network drive?

Our intention is to connect one pc to five Floppy drives via Ethernet.
We want to read and write data files to the machines.

So my question is, what drives i need right now?
And if the picture is the right way (with one network drive) how does it work
to control the different floppy drives?

I hope you can help me.
Thanks and Best Regards.
David

[chris_intx]

Hello David,


The current network system is RS-485 over CAT-5 type of cable. It is not ethernet compatible; ethernet capable units are under development.


To work with the current system, you would use one accessory, a single conversion box between RS-232 on your computer serial port to the RS-485 system; then the RS-485 cable is daisy chained with RJ-45 splitters. A single computer would control multiple USB units simultaneously.

The current system is write-only; it was intended for a system that was write only. It can read directories and delete and write, but not transfer back; development is closed, to pursue ethernet development.

If you can work with these limitations, then you would order a network capable USB drive and the network accessory. You must specify that the USB units are for a network.

Please look at our PLR website under the SERVICES menu at the top. There should be a document explaining some of the details of the system in the USB Network document.


--Chris