A lot of customers in the purchase of industrial Ethernet switches will ask how many optical and electrical ports of switches, but also will ask what the difference between the electrical and optical ports of industrial Ethernet switch is, what is the role of the optical port and so on. This article introduces two optical ports of industrial Ethernet switches and what is the role of optical ports of the industrial switch.
1. Introduction of Two Optical Ports on an Industrial Ethernet Switch
In the process of using an industrial Ethernet switch, we will find the SFP port and Combo port on the industrial switch. What are these two ports respectively in the industrial switch? The optical ports on the switch are usually paired together, with one TX sender and one RX receiver. The port type of the 100 M bit/s switches is generally SC card square port, and the optical port type of the 1000 M bit/s switch is generally SFP optical module, and the port type is LC. The electrical port refers to the Ethernet network port. The network port of a gigabit switch has 10m/10m/1 m network port, while the common 100 m switch has 10m/10m network port.
SFP port is a subset of the gigabit Ethernet port. When an SFP port uses an optical fiber gigabit link, it is a gigabit Ethernet port. In Ethernet switches, both electrical and optical interfaces use the same protocol at the link layer. The only difference is what medium is used at the physical layer. SFP describes the physical layer.
Combo generally refers to optical multiplexing. In other words, only one of the two ports (one optical and one electricity are regarded as a group Combo) can be used at the same time. For example, if the optical port is used, the electricity port cannot be used. The SFP module is inserted into the optical port of the industrial Ethernet switch and can communicate with the peer port of the same SFP module through the optical fiber, without fiber transceiver conversion.
2. The Role of Optical Ports on Industrial Ethernet Switches
The optical port of an industrial Ethernet switch refers to the optical fiber interface, which has single-mode, multi-mode, gigabit, and gigabit specifications. The optical ports on industrial Ethernet switches are generally paired together, with one TX sender and the other RX receiver. The port type of 100 MBIT/s switches is generally SC card square port, and the optical port type of 1000 MBIT/s switch is generally SFP optical module and LC port type.
Electrical port, also known as RJ45 port, is used to plug twisted-pair cables (network cables). Generally, the rate is 10M or 100M, that is, 100M industrial switches, and some support 1000M, that is, 1000M switches.
The optical port and the electrical port of the industrial Ethernet switch are the same purposes, both play the role of transmission, the electrical port distance is 100 meters, and the optical port can be up to 2KM to 100KM according to different types of optical fiber. Therefore, the industrial Ethernet switch is generally used with electricity, and the corresponding optical fiber will be selected for long-distance transmission.
This article introduces the main points of the industrial Ethernet switch optical interface. The industrial Ethernet switch optical interface refers to the optical fiber interface, this interface has many types & specifications, and the optical interface is used in pairs.
