Phoenix Contact has added a compact version to its range of automation switches to accommodate use in Profinet systems.

The new FL SWITCH SMN 8TX-PN with eight 10/100Mbps copper ports can be configured and diagnosed using the Profinet Device function in the PC Worx and Step 7 engineering tools. Thanks to automatic LLDP topology detection and the MRP redundancy mechanism, the switch is fully suitable for Conformance Class B Profinet networks.

The switches can be used in both Profinet and EtherNet/IP networks. During initial startup, the operating mode that contains the relevant functions of the particular protocol is activated by simply pressing a button.

The switches support the Media Redundancy Protocol (MRP) according to IEC 62439; for this, any device can act as a Media Redundancy Manager (MRM) via an MRM plug. Furthermore, an interchangeable configuration memory module guarantees fast device replacement when a fault or malfunction occurs. In EtherNet/IP applications, the switches support the filter function based on IGMP snooping.