Using RS-485 receiver with RS-422 signals
RS-422 &amp; RS-485 are similar in that they both use balanced, differential signalling.  All of the RS-422 &amp; RS-485 systems that I have seen or worked with use 5V levels.

A RS-422 driver is an output-only device.  It will happily feed a RS-485 device so long as that RS-485 device is only ever receiving data.  You will have a data collision if the RS-485 device ever tries to transmit on that pair.

The best way to think of this is that RS-422 is intended for systems that use separate Tx &amp; Rx signal paths.  That is: there is a single sender on each of the two data pairs (one sender at each end of the link).

Note that RS-422 can have multiple listeners.  

RS-485 is designed for multi-drop systems where multiple devices can talk and listen to the same single conductor pair.