Black Box IC160A User manual

Add two or four high-speed serial ports
to your PC or server in seconds!
Add two or four high-speed serial ports
to your PC or server in seconds!
USB Directors (USB↔RS-422/485 & USB↔RS-422)
© 2007. All rights reserved. Black Box Corporation.
FREE 24-hour Tech Support: 724-746-5500
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9/14/2007
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FEATURES
• Full compliance with USB specifications.
• No external power supply necessary;
the hub derives its power from the
USB port.
• Plug-and-play installation.
• No additional IRQs required.
• Externally attach new devices—
no need to open the PC’s chassis!
• Autodetect speeds and connections
of devices.
• Include drivers for Windows 98,
Windows 2000, Windows Me,
and Windows XP.
OVERVIEW
Attach a USB Director to a PC or server and give yourself
two extra high-speed RS-422/485 ports or four RS-422 ports.
These stackable expansion modules connect to the server or
PC via a Type A Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, enabling you
to add either two or four high-speed serial ports in seconds.
Offering 12-Mbps bandwidth, the USB Director can be
used to consolidate low- and medium-speed PC desktop
peripherals. It’s also ideal for adding printers, video-editing
equipment, and point-of-sale and industrial-control devices
that use a standard serial interface.
You never need to open the chassis or power down your
PC or server to install the USB Director. To get the extra 2
or 4 ports, just plug the hub in using the included USB cable.
The cable’s flat end goes into your PC’s USB port or into an
available USB port on a standard USB hub, and the D-shaped
end plugs into the USB Director.
Both hub versions have a two-position DIP switch for
connecting the signal ground to chassis ground. The IC160A
hub, which supports both RS-422 and RS-485, also has two sets
of eight-position DIP switches for setting echo, full- or half-
duplex, and terminator options for its two serial ports.
The simple setup of the USB Director also includes
installing the included configuration software, which walks
you through the installation, and you’re done—no card lots,
IRQ addresses, DMA channels, or device addresses to deal
with. The hub autodetects speeds and connections of devices
while offering plug-and-play capability with peripherals. And
power is derived from the USB port, so there are no batteries
or power adapters to deal with, either.
The USB Director comes with drivers for use in Windows®
98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, and Windows XP
environments. If you need to use the hub with a Windows NT®
4.0 system, call Black Box Tech Support.
You can manage various USB Director resources via the
port manager utility.exe program file, found in the Windows
System directory. Use the utility, for instance, to check the
mapping of each physical communications port to the
Windows COM-port numbers and give your USB Director a
user-friendly name, which is particularly helpful if you want
to install more than one USB Director hub.
LEDs alert you to the loss of USB communication with the
host; signify serial-port activity; and indicate that the serial
ports have been successfully set up and the USB Director
Hub is operating normally.
Universal Serial Bus is a royalty-free bus specification
developed by leading manufacturers in the PC and telephony
industries to support plug-and-play peripheral connections.
USB offers increased bandwidth, isochronous and
asynchronous data transfers, and lower costs than
conventional I/O ports.
The USB bus is a daisychain consisting of USB hubs and
peripherals less than 5 meters (16.4 ft.) apart. The USB
daisychain can support up to 127 devices. Instead of opening
up the CPU to insert new boards, make all connections outside
the case to the USB ports.
Because USB connections are hot-swappable, you can
attach or remove peripherals without shutting down your
computer. Also, USB hubs have additional ports that enable
you to daisychain multiple devices together. More than 450
leading manufacturers of PCs, peripherals, and software
support USB.
Technically Speaking
TECH SPECS
Compliance — EN 55022 Class B, EN 50082-1, EN 60950, CSA 22.2 No. 950,
FCC Part 15, UL®1950
Distance (Maximum) — 15 ft. (4.5 m)
System Requirements — Pentium®class CPU; 16 MB RAM;
(1) unused USB port; Windows 98 or higher
Connectors — IC160A: (2) DB9 M, (1) Type B USB;
IC161A: (4) DB9 M, (1) Type B USB
Indicators — (1) System Status LED
Temperature Tolerance — Operating: 32 to 104°F (0 to 40°C)
Humidity Tolerance — 5 to 95%
Power — Derived from the USB port
Size — 5.6"H x 3"W x 1"D (14.2 x 7.6 x 2.5 cm)
Weight — 2.5 lb. (1.1 kg)
Item Code
USB Director
USB↔RS-422/485, 2-Port IC160A
USB↔RS-422, 4-Port IC161A
You might also want to order…
USB Cable, 3-ft. (0.9-m) USB01-0003
USB Data-Line Protectors
Series A 40314
Series B 40315
✦ USB Director hub
✦ 3-ft. USB cable
✦ Software driver diskette for Windows 98,
Windows 2000, Windows Me, and Windows XP.
✦ Users’ manual
WHAT‘S INCLUDED