RS232 distance

[Guest]

I want to connect two PICs using the hardware uart, can it be run 7 feet between the two?

My plan is to drive 7 digits of 7 segment displays but I don't want to run 14 wires 7 feet from the MAX7219. So my main PIC would be to send display commands and obtain data from various sensors, and the 2nd PIC would be to receive the RS232 and parse it out and set the segments.

Or is there a simplier way?

[SherpaDoug]

If you use RS232 driver chips and reasonable wire you can go hundreds of feet at 9600 baud, or dozens of feet at 115200 baud.
If you only need to go 7 feet and you can use a shielded wire you should be able to use the CCS "RS232" functions without driver chips (at TTL levels). A lot depends on the environment. If you are under a car hood sharing space with spark plugs you will have a lot more problems than if you are at the bottom of the ocean where most of my gear goes.
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