Rs422/485

Redshift

Ok I have an interesting problem, without getting into massive amounts of detail here's what I need to do. I work a wide area system operated from a central point. part of the system involves telemetry signals using an RS422 bus in the central control point coming from a couple of dozen operator consoles from where the commands are sent. These commands are converted to RS485 and sent out to remote sites on fibre and converted back to RS485 on the remote site. I need to find a way of capturing and recording the signal for each command with a view to replacing some of the hardware with software applications that will do the same job of accepting user input and tranmitting the apropriate commands on to the bus. It is not possible to get the protocols from the vendor so this is the only option. I hope that makes sense.
Anybody any ideas, at the moment i'm just trying to see if this is even feasable.

Thanks

Red

ressem

Only guessing but there's software that can be used to trace and debug rs232
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/portmon.shtml
http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon.html

Perhaps an rs232 to rs422 converter attached to the control point with a null serial cable together with the hhdsoftware would give a low cost testing platform, assuming that high baud rates aren't used?

edit- remembered to finish post
Then an rs232 sniffer cable made up and placed on the link to a non critical console.
http://www.marcspages.co.uk/tech/3104.htm
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Though you'd imagine that rs422 would just be seen as another com port, if you connect a rs422 card to your pc and the software "should" be capable of dealing with it in the same way.

Redshift

Thanks for that Ressem, Thats given me something to work with.:)

Cheers
Red