Eterlogic virtual serial ports emulator

Share COM port with multiple applications

Using Splitter device

To share existing COM port with multiple applications, you can use Virtual Splitter device device.

For example, if you want to share existing serial port COM1 with multiple applications, you need to do the following:

scenario_splitter.png

Data flow diagram

scenario_splitter2.png

Splitter configuration

Using Serial Router device

To share existing COM port with multiple applications, you can also use Serial Router device device. It gives you more control over data splitting logic compared to Virtual Splitter device (and has special modes such as SmartRouter and Switch mode to handle specific communications protocols). It also allows you to add Transformers to avoid write conflicts and modify data.

For example, if you want to share existing serial port COM1 with multiple applications, you need to do the following:

Resolving write conflicts

If multiple clients are sending partially formatted commands (not full command, but by small chunks), there is a chance that this will result in write conflict when request from client1 is incorrectly merged with request from client2. To address that (for Serial Router is in fan-out mode) you should add Transformers to split data into consistently formatted chunks so that every chunk is a complete request.

serialrouter_fanout_graph.png

Serial Router (fan-out) data flow diagram

serialrouter2.png

Serial router settings

Alternative: TcpServer + Connector + TcpClient

scenario_share2.png

Alternative: TcpServer + Connector + TcpClient

See also:
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