ABB AC 800F

4 Cabling the AC 800F
4-17
4.2.6 Designing the network
4.2.6.1 General information
When designing the Ethernet network of an automation system you should consider
that this has an impact on the infrastructure of the building. Therefore, possible future
requirements should be taken into account, e.g.:
• Connection to a corporate management level or a supervisory archiving computer
at a later time
• Network expansions
• When connecting several segments you should note that the maximum possible
number of repeaters is limited. The repeaters and the network concentrators
require an own power supply (230 V AC, 115 V AC, or 24 V DC), see Section
4.2.12.
• Use a 10Base5 or 10BaseFL segment instead of several 10Base2 segments with
repeaters.
• When expanding an existing network you should consider a change to fiber optic
cables.
As a rule, fiber optic cables should be used wherever this is possible. Besides a
high transmission reliability these cables provide an excellent EMC. With
supplementary diagnostic boards in the network concentrators it is possible to make
checks while the system is running and to switch off defective nodes if required.
Additionally, redundant fiber optic links can be laid between network concentrators.
For details refer to Section 4.2.10.5.
If you don’t have any experience in designing and installing LANs please contact an
expert.
For details on how to design a network refer to
• ABB: Design and components of CSO networks, Technical Bulletin
30/72-6211-EN.