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Many people ask what is galvanic isolation? Galvanic Isolation is the principle of isolating functional sections of electric systems so that charge carrying particles cannot move from one section to another, i.e. there is no electric current flowing directly from one section to the next.
 Energy and/or information can still be exchanged between the sections by other means. Examples are by capacitance, induction, electromagnetic waves, optical, acoustic or mechanical means.
Galvanic isolation is used in situations where two or more electric circuits must communicate, but their grounds may be at different potentials. It is an effective method of breaking ground loops by preventing unwanted current from travelling between two units sharing a ground conductor.
Products that use RS485 and operate with an optical interface (Optocoupler) will feature Galvanic Isolation. Optical isolation is by far the more common form of creating a galvanic isolated rs485 circuit and is widely used in the industrial process control environments.
Galvanic isolation in an RS485 network can give your system a significant advantage over a normally wired network. No ground loops, protection of the product from the RS485 network and more reliable communications. Generally these advantages add up to a infinitely more reliable system.
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