| Industrial vs. Commercial Ethernet |
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| The selection of commercial or industrial Ethernet network products should be based on the environment. In a controlled environment like office condition, commercial-grade is acceptable. In hot, humid, vibration-prone, electrically noisy environments, industrial-grade is required. Managed or unmanaged switches can be used, but managed switches provide the capability to speed troubleshooting and repair. |
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| The specifications of Industrial Ethernet products (temperature, shock, vibration, immunity... etc.) exceed harsh and industrial operating environment. Most commercial Ethernet products have commercial temperature ratings (0-40C), and do not publish environmental specs. Industrial Ethernet are designed for operation at -10 to 60C or -40 to 75C or even -40 to 85C, and have excellent environmental tolerance specification. Furthermore, Industrial Ethernet switches have rugged enclosures using Din-Rail or Panel Mounting. Most commercial Ethernet equipments cannot be installed easily inside equipment enclosures. Most industrial Ethernet equipments have redundant power input. Commercial grade normally have a single power supply input. This assures maximum uptime. |
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| Commercial Ethernet has been available in the office environment long before industrial Ethernet In many harsh and industrial environment cases, customers only implemented commercial-grade Ethernet equipments because they were not aware that industrial grade equipments was available. Therefore, they may implement commercial networking to |
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| 1. Build Climate-controlled environments using commercial grade Ethernet in harsh and industrial working areas ( which is very costly ) |
| 2. Connect all devices to a Climate-controlled environment using commercial-grade equipment ( which is very costly and affect reliability ) |
| 3. Simply use commercial Ethernet regardless of harsh and industrial environment ( which will fail in the future or affect reliability ) |
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