However, to build up well-connected and beneficial networks in factory plants faces several problems. Firstly, some factory plants such as steel or automobile factory are exposed in the environment with dusts, high moisture, humidity and even higher temperature. Secondly, some legacy machines in factory plants only support serial protocol in Industrial Automation applications. Therefore, it is vital to choose network devices that can support both serial and Ethernet-based connections.
To reduce downtime and enhance productivity, it is also important to take redundant mechanism into consideration. All in all, to set up a successful network system in factory plants, there are several challenges that we may face and need to be handled with caution.

Challenges

• ● Devices placed in factory plants are easily affected by various noises which can result in unstable quality, increased cost and working hours.
• ● Improper serial ports' grounding leads to system instability or failures.
• ● Devices placed in factory plants may have high possibilities to suffer from ESD, EFT and surge.
• ● When a single point of failure occurs in a device, production output may be greatly affected.
• ● Some legacy devices do not support Ethernet-based connections. They only support serial protocol.
• ● Factory plants may be exposed in environments with dust, high moisture or higher temperature.

CTC Union's Solution

• ● Provides Industrial grade EMI and EMS certification to offer better protection against ESD or surges.
• ● Serial ports such as RS-422/RS-485 are isolated (2.5KV) to minimize the risks of system instability or failures.
• ● Supports dual fiber, ring or u-ring redundancy. u-Ring can support up to 5 rings (maximum) and can recover from a single point of failure in 10ms.
• ● Supports fiber and serial connectors such as RS-422/RS-485 to allow greater flexibility and scalability.
• ● Supports wide range of operating temperature (-40~75°C) with rugged design.