​Characteristics of Industrial Switches

Nowadays, industrial switch (also called industrial Ethernet switch or industrial network switch) plays a vitally important role in various industries like energy, environmental protection, transportation, smart city surveillance, etc. And the demand for the Industrial Switch is also increasing. What is the industrial switch? What are the characteristics of an industrial switch? 

An industrial Ethernet switch is a type of network switch designed to operate in harsh industrial environments. Oil rigs, railways, manufacturing plants, and similar applications require industrial-grade network equipment that can tolerate an extended range of temperature, humidity, vibration, electrical noise, and physical contamination (oil, water sprays).

Industrial automation engineers have created industrial Ethernet switches by adapting Ethernet to accommodate the stringent, deterministic-network requirements of manufacturing automation environments and industrial networking solutions.  Railway Ethernet Switches are a type of industrial network switch designed to meet parts of the EN 50155 railway-industry standard.

An Industrial Ethernet switch is sometimes designed to be mounted on a DIN rail—a widely used standard metal rail used to mount control equipment in industrial networking solutions. So, you may also see the term DIN-rail Ethernet switch, or simply DIN-rail switch. DIN refers to the German standards body, Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN), which published the original specifications since adopted as European (EN) and international (IEC) standard.

 Characteristics of Industrial Switch:

Excellent Construction for Industrial Environments

Industrial switches usually adopt hardened construction like rugged enclosure with IP30, IP40, or higher-level protection rating to withstand humidity, shock, vibration and temperature extremes. Some network switches are even equipped with 6KV lightning protection to prevent damage from thunder and lightning in outdoor uses. With a rugged design, industrial network switches can deliver data stably extreme temperatures from -40° to 75°C, while normal network switches can not support that. 

Fast Ring Network, Fast Redundancy

In general, an industrial Ethernet switch is characterized by a fast ring network and fast redundancy. In a certain simple Ring network, the recovery time of the data link can be as fast as 20ms.

Redundant Power Supply Design

The power supply is another notable feature of the industrial switch. The industrial network switch usually adopts dual power supply redundancy to avoid power failure which accounts for a large proportion of industrial switch failure rates, guaranteeing a stable and reliable connection in harsh environments.

Flexible Mounting Options of DIN-rail and Wall Mounting

Most industrial switches are available in DIN-rail or wall mounting options for installation. For the option of DIN-rail, it's ideal for efficient use of cabinet space in harsh environments. It also does help in simplifying the installation, the DIN rail industrial switch can be attached to the long metal strips within a standard component rail-mounting system or a standard cabinet rack in an easier way. Besides, an industrial switch with DIN-rail mounting option does help in protecting sensitive electrical equipment.

Fanless Design

Industrial Ethernet switch generally uses a metal casing rather than a fan for faster heat dissipation. Fanless design for the industrial switch can minimize problems with dust and moisture ingress. In this regard, industrial switch ensures long-term reliability in industrial applications.