| Understanding Industrial Ethernet standards by Ron Groulx Feb09 |
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Page 3 of 3 The “Fieldbus” portion of the chart addresses the following standards: • IEC 61158-2 specifies ‘Fieldbus for use in industrial control systems - Part 2: Physical Layer specification” that covers non-Ethernet Fieldbus cabling. This document should be used in conjunction with the Fieldbus profiles documents IEC 61784-1 and IEC 61784-2 to specify the cabling requirements for individual non-Ethernet Fieldbus implementation. • IEC 61918 standardizes common elements across all the Fieldbuses, and IEC 61784-5 provides profile-specific installations requirements. Use these two documents as a set to specify installation requirements. Specification documents for these products are large and can be rather expensive. The IEC does however package and sell groups of IEC 61158, IEC 61918, and 61784 documents pertinent to the Fieldbus being used. How the TIA specifications fit in One other factor to consider is the TIA generic cabling standard series. ANSI/TIA-568 is fairly well aligned with the ISO/IEC generic cabling standard 11801 with some terminology differences. A few examples are: • An ISO equivalent of a TIA category 5e installed cable system is ISO Class D. • An ISO equivalent to a TIA category 6 installed cable system is Class E. • ISO/IEC 11801 references a separate IEC specification that covers component performance such as individual connectors. These IEC component specifications use the same category 5e/6/6A performance classifications as TIA. • TIA-1005 “Telecommunications Infrastructure Standards for Industrial Premises” is the TIA equivalent of ISO/IEC 24702. This standard adds topology, environmental and electrical transmission requirements for industrial premises. Getting help Anyone unfamiliar with these standards can contact the appropriate trade organizations for additional information. Fieldbus developers for example offer an excellent source of standards-compliant application guides for their products. Additional information and support can also be found through organizations such as BICSI, IEAG and ISA. This is only a basic sampling of what technicians need to know when working with industrial Ethernet standards. Getting the proper education and training are integral to ensuring the success of any Ethernet design, installation and maintenance process. While it does take time, effort and training, getting to know the ropes is definitely worth the investment over the long term. Ron Groulx is product manager for FLUKE NETWORKS CANADA. Having worked in the industry for almost ten years and a graduate in computer science, he is knowledgeable in all aspects of networking from cabling infrastructure to network monitoring and troubleshooting. E-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to contact the author. |
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