To add my 5 cents to the tread; I'm working onboard chemical tanker ships
with electric propulsion, meaning diesel generators driving an electric
propulsion motor. In those ships there have been a number of different
suppliers of equipment which needs to communicate with eachother. The
mainframe is a Finnish contraption made for the paper industry some 15
years ago. This is the main frame for the entire ship so all other units
have to communicate with it, including the propulsion system. It uses RS422
protocol and most of the other equipment is RS232 and consequently there are
a bunch of converters fitted everywhere. After 8 years these still performs
flawlessly and to my knowledge none have been failing. Ofcourse there is a
loss of speed as soon as you convert something, but it's fast enough for the
old mainframe.
The industry still likes to keep RS232 as it is a solid, proven connection
that is fast enough for most applications. Reliability is a more important
factor than speed. Flimsy USB connectors just don't make it in the
vibrating, saltwater invironment we have onboard.
Sam, HS0ZDY
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