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Application Note APP-1239
Connecting 4-wire modems to a 2-wire cable.
Summary:
Normally, all leased cables and most proprietary
cables used in telemetry and SCADA installations are
four wire. One pair is used for the transmit direction
and the other pair is used for the receive direction.
All Bell-202 modems are equipped to interface with
these two cable pairs. All Scan-Data Bell-202 stand
alone modems and also the built in Bell-202 modems
in the Scan-Data RTUs are designed to work over
these four wire cables or over radio.
Radio communication, by the way, is always the
equivalent of a 4-wire circuit, with a separate
transmitter and receiver combined in each radio set.
Why are 4 wires (two pairs) used in
cables?
The main reason for using two pairs is that amplifiers
can be inserted anywhere on either pair without
causing instability. A single pair may sometimes be
amplified in both directions, using special negative
impedance amplifiers, but the process is difficult,
often causes instability and ringing and is today hardly
ever used.
What to do if only one pair is
available?
There may be times when only one cable pair is
available. This happens when older installations are
expanded to a point where there are no more cable
pairs available. Laying new cables may be too
expensive.
This application note describes how to use a single
cable pair for Bell-202 4-wire modem transmissions in
telemetry and SCADA systems.
P.O. Box 17028
Encino, CA 91416-7028
Phone: 818-785-6200
FAX: 818-785-4415
Email:scandata@aol.com
www.scan-data.com
APP-1239
10-02-00
Using 4-wire to 2-wire converters.
These converters allow 4-wire operation on 2-wire
cables. Scan-Data manufactures a 4-wire to 2-wire
converter, the 4W2, which allows 4-wire operation over
a 2-wire cable without loss and with no instability.
The 4W2 has three terminal pairs with screw
connectors. The first pair connects to the Bell-202
transmit output, the second to the Bell-202 receive
input and the third to the two wire cable.
The 4W2 is transformer isolated in all three branches.
It also presents a proper 600 ohm impedance in all
three branches which prevents losses from impedance
mismatches. An active hybrid transformer and
operational amplifiers insure that there are no loss
through the 4W2 and a better than 20 db isolation
between the transmit and the receive pairs insures
stability.
Wiring the modem transmit pair
and receive pair together.
This can sometimes be done in an emergency on both
the Scan-Data stand alone Bell-202 modems and the
Bell-202 RTUs. Simply wire the 'OUT' terminal pair
across to the 'IN' terminal pair, in effect making a 'brute
force' two wire modem out of the 4-wire modem.
This is generally not a good practice although it may
work over good two wire cables in an emergency.
Connecting the high level modem output directly to the
sensitive modem input may make it difficult for these
circuits to operate properly. The input and output
impedances are also severely distorted, adding a
considerable loss to the system
The Scan-Data Bell-202 modem design is robust and
very stable and it can operate in this fashion over most
two wire cables. Other modems may not be able to do
this. Not that connecting the output directly to the input
in these modems, as described above, can easily
make them oscillate and therefore inoperable.