What communications options are available?

All current RBR instruments support USB as standard and all RBR loggers have USB-C connections inside the pressure housing. USB-C cables are available globally from any consumer electronics source, in case you need to replace the cable supplied with the instrument.

In addition, RS-232 and RS-485 serial connections are available on the standard instrument (L3) family. In fact, the USB-C connector contains pins for not only USB but also the serial connection simultaneously. The most convenient way of accessing the serial lines is to change the battery end-cap (BEC) as there are variants wired for external USB, RS-232, and RS-485 (full duplex) all available.

Our legacy instruments (Generation², 1060/1050/2050/XR families) all have RS-232 connections using a 30 pin Apple connector, an RJ-11 telephone jack connector, or a mini-USB connector and a proprietary cable as the pins are actually serial, not USB. For many computers, a serial-to-USB converter is required. RBR recommends EasySYNC ES-U-1001-A or any other adaptor based on an FTDI chipset.

RS-232 details: Only TX, RX, and GND lines are used for RBR instruments – no hardware handshaking lines are required.

RS-485 details: RBR instruments support full duplex RS-485, requiring A+, A-, B+, B-, and a GND line. We recommend the use of twisted shielded pair cable for any significant distance, and drawings are available if you wish to assemble your own cable. Cables are also available from RBR directly.

Serial in general: Factory baudrate of modern RBR instruments is 9600, unless custom requests have been made. Use Ruskin to change this setting to values from 1200 to 115200, both over a serial connection or a USB connection.