HANDHELD COMMUNICATION TESTER AND METHOD FOR TESTING DIRECT SERIAL COMMUNICATION CAPABILITY OF AN INTELLIGENT ELECTRONIC DEVICE IN A POWER SYSTEM

摘要

Provided is a handheld communication tester and method for testing direct serial communication capability of an IED. The first IED includes an equal plurality of transmit bit channels and receive bit channels. The handheld communication tester (100) includes a housing sized for single-hand portability, a connector (142) disposed in a wall of the housing and adapted for connection to the IED or a serial communication link to the IED, and a microcontroller disposed inside of the housing and operatively coupled to the connector. The microcontroller (132) is programmed to detect synchronization with the IED, to automatically detect and store a Baud rate of the IED, automatically detect and store a transmit identification of the IED, and automatically detect and store a receive identification of the IED. The transmit identification is used to encode transmissions from the IED, and the receive identification is used to encode transmissions received by the IED.