qdrives , 09-24-2021, 05:51 PM
First important question: are you using RS485 or RS422. RS485 is a two wire half duplex bus (D+ & D-). RS422 can be 4 wire and full duplex (Tx+, Tx-, Rx+ & Rx-). RS422 often allows the Tx and Rx be combined and so create RS485.
RS422 is either point-to-point or one master to multiple slaves. RS485 is a bus, so all units can communicate with each other.
RS485 being half duplex, needs a Drive Enable pin on the transceiver, although almost all RS422 drivers have this too.
How many sensors? There is also a drive capability (or more a load question). Common values are 32 and 128 nodes.
For the rest, both of them are simple UART.