Industrial Ethernet switch breaks price barrier

The SD-500 series of five-port industrial Ethernet switches meets high industrial specifications and provides very high dependability in harsh environments - but at office Ethernet prices.

The relatively high price of industrial Ethernet switches compared with those used in the office environment has persuaded some end users to install lower-grade products in industrial applications, thereby sacrificing reliability, functionality and technical support in an effort to cut equipment costs.

The use of regular office-grade Ethernet switches in industrial applications is more common than might be expected.

But cutting corners in this way is a false economy.

Ethernet in an industrial environment must be very reliable as downtime is much less tolerable in the factory than in the office.

Furthermore, harsh environments with electrical noise and vibration require equipment of very high quality and robustness, something office grade products simply do not provide.

Now, there's no need to cut those corners.

The introduction of a new range of industrial Ethernet switches by Westermo Data Communications should put an end to the bad practice.

The SD-500 series of five-port industrial Ethernet switches meets high industrial specifications and provides very high dependability in harsh environments - but at office prices.

The compact SD-500 series comes in several variations ranging from the basic SD-550 with five RJ-45 TX (copper) ports to the SD-532, which has two FX (fibre) and three TX (copper) ports.

The SD-550 all-copper version is available starting at just GBP 99, and is therefore one of the first five-port industrial grade switches to break the GBP 100 barrier.

A unique feature is that the RJ-45 chassis are individually isolated - which prevents noise and earth currents being carried from one part of the network to another over the cable screens.

In industrial applications this can be a major advantage.

All TX ports support auto-negotiation, but DIP switches also allow speed and duplex configuration of any individual TX port.

Automatic MDI/MDIX crossover is available - making installation a lot easier An extended temperature range of -25 to +60C is standard on the Westermo range in keeping with industries ever-increasing requirements for negative operating temperatures.

The SD-500 range has a number of LED indicators for speed, duplex, link and traffic, and can be DIN rail mounted.

A wide DC power range 12-48V DC is available as well as redundant power in the form of dual input.

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