Belden recently released the Rail Switch Power Expandable (RSPE) family of managed industrial Ethernet switches, “building on the tried-and-tested Rail Switch Power family from Hirschmann,” the company said. Belden added that the products in the RSPE family “make it possible to create flexible Ethernet installations in which the network design can be quickly adapted to manage changing application needs. Its high reliability guarantees 100-percent availability of data communications, ensuring optimum productivity for machines and systems.”
Jurgen Schmidt, product manager, commented, “In today’s fast-changing industrial environments, flexibility is key. With our new Rail Switch Power Expandable switches, media modules can be added to basic switch devices in virtually no time at all—a practical and cost-effective solution for today and tomorrow.”
Belden describes the following as characteristics of the RSPE product family.
- Eight Fast Ethernet twisted-pair ports and four combo ports that support Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet
- High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR) and Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) redundancy standards, plus precise time synchronization in accordance with IEEE 1588 v2, can be extended to provide up to 28 ports by adding two media modules.
- Various combinations of copper and fiber ports, plus Power over Ethernet by module type
- Comprehensive management, diagnostic and filtering features, as well as numerous redundancy methods, bringing all-around security to the network
- An extended operating temperature range from -40 to +70 degrees Celsius, high vibration resistance and broad immunity to electrostatic discharges
The switches are “specially certified for a range of application scenarios,” Belden said, adding that they “guarantee highly efficient solutions even under harsh environmental conditions.”