Industrial Engineer · phase 5 of 16 · noun
Baud Rate / Parity
Serial communication settings that define bit timing and optional error checking and must match at both ends.
The Explain card
- Plain English
- Baud rate is how fast the bits are sent on a serial line, and parity is an optional extra bit that lets the receiver catch a corrupted byte. Both must be set identically at every device on the link.
- Example
- A meter set to 9600 baud, 8 data bits, even parity, 1 stop bit. The PLC port set to 19200 hears nothing but noise from it.
- Why it matters
- A mismatch produces silence or garbage rather than an error message, so serial troubleshooting starts by reading every device's settings off its label or its menu. Write them on the panel drawing while you are there.
- Hook
- Same speed, same rules, or nobody hears anything.
Word knowledge
How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.
In a sentence
Before commissioning the Modbus RTU link, set the Baud Rate and parity on the PLC and VFD, then verify stable register reads.
Why these words
- baud French surname Baudot, from telegraph engineer Émile Baudot names the signaling unit associated with the setting
- rate Latin rata, fixed or reckoned amount marks the phrase as a measurement expressed against time
Where it came from
- Origin
- French Baudot, shortened to baud in honor of Émile Baudot, combined with rate from Latin rata
- Entered the language
- 1930s
- What changed
- A surname became a telecommunications unit, and the added word rate made the measurement phrase explicit, though baud already denotes a rate.
How it is spelled
- Pattern
- baud keeps the au spelling for the vowel sound heard in laud
- Pattern
- rate follows the final-e pattern in which e makes the preceding a long
- Breaks the pattern
- Baud is pronounced like bawd, and its au spelling is less common than aw for that sound
Spelled like
- laud
- fraud
- gate
- late
Broken into chunks
-
baud
- kilobaud
- megabaud
-
rate
- rated
- rating
What it sits beside
Same subject
- parity
- stop bit
- Modbus RTU
- RS-485
- serial port
Same shape
- bit rate
- data rate
- scan rate
- sample rate
serial port settings
- baud rate
- parity
- data bits
- stop bits
communication rates
- baud rate
- bit rate
- data rate
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 5: PLC Industrial Communications
The protocols that let controllers, drives and operator panels talk, plus the addressing and description files that make them agree on what was said.
