DL 06 Communications

[highground 0]

Hello all, I am an electrician new to PLC's. I am bumbling through using a DL 06 to control a solar hot water system in my own home. I wish to remotely monitor the PLC inside the house using cat 5 cable that is already in the walls. What is the simplest way to tie the PLC to my PC using about 100' of cable. I am assuming the distance is too great to just extend the programming cable, is this correct? Thanks in advance

[rlp122 4]

That would be correct. RS-232 has a hardware limitation of 100 feet theoretically. In reality it is more like 20 feet. The big problem with RS-232 is that it is a ground referenced signal. If the PLC ground and your PC ground are at different potentials, *Zapp* there goes either the PLC or the PC. I'm not a fan of RS-232 over any sort of distance where you can't plug the PLC and PC in the same power source. Ethernet would be the way to go, but it will cost you about $169 for the card.