Fieldbus is a data bus used in industrial automation, which is used for the transmission of data and control signals between field devices such as sensors, control systems, and actuators in the industrial field.

The fieldbus cable is the transmission carrier of these control signals and data. In order to facilitate the interconnection of various field devices and instruments, both ends of the cable are generally equipped with waterproof connectors to achieve stable and reliable data and signal connections.

In the 1980s and 1990s, with the expansion of production scale and the improvement of automation, there was a need for mutual communication and data transmission between various equipment and instruments.
Through mutual communication between devices, managers could know the operation status of each device, thereby improving production efficiency.
However, there is no unified standard at this time, and each manufacturer establishes its own system, which leads to the inability of interconnection between the equipment of different manufacturers, resulting in great waste and difficulty in system integration.

Decades ago, the International Electrotechnical Commission/International Standards Association (IEC/ISA) began to formulate fieldbus standards, but due to the competing interests of various countries and companies, the work of unifying the standards has not been completed.
At present, there are more than 40 different fieldbus standards from different countries and companies, but the most popular fieldbus accounts for about 80% market,widely used in process automation, medicine production, manufacturing, transportation, national defense, aerospace, agriculture and buildings, and other fields.

What fieldbus types are most popular ?

1. Interbus Fieldbus

What is Interbus

Interbus is a fieldbus developed by the Phoenix Contact company in 1984. It is one of the earliest and most widely used field buses in the world, had been used to connect sensors, actuators and control systems. It is an open serial bus system.
Interbus has been widely used in automation and manufacturing, and has become the German DIN19258 standard, EN50254 European standard and IEC61158 international standard.
Interbus has a very high share in the automobile manufacturing industry and is favored by global automobile manufacturers because the performance of interbus is very suitable for the automobile manufacturing industry.
In addition to automobile manufacturing, Interbus also provides good solutions for other automatic control applications, ranking second in the market share of fieldbus, widely used in printing, food, mechanical engineering, factory automation, paper, beverage, building Automation, woodworking, assembly, robotics, and process control.

Advantages of interbus :

• Three different transmission media can be mixed and used, and the effective data transmission efficiency is as high as 52%
• The data exchange from the I/O layer to the control layer can be realized with a single cable, which can save 40% of material and installation costs.
• All PCs can use Interbus, and 80% of PLCs in the world can join the interbus
• Plug and play, no need to set address, no need for terminating resistor
• Long transmission distance, the longest can reach 12.8 kilometers
• One controller can control up to 255 nodes
• Office equipment, field equipment, and remote equipment can be connected together to achieve interconnection and improve production collaboration efficiency
• The control range is large, the distance between two nodes can reach 400 meters (twisted pair),
• When the constant transmission rate is 500Kbps, 4096 I/O points can be scanned in 78 milliseconds
• Using a unique ring networking form and transmission protocol, it can quickly locate faults and fault information
• Stable data transmission, strong anti-electromagnetic interference ability
• Use low-level protocols to transmit information to ensure the efficiency of the protocol

Interbus Fieldbus cables

The 5 pin M12 to DB9 cable had been used a lot for CANOopen , IO-link ,  interus , profibus thse Field bus , which is an industrial data bus developed rapidly in recent years .

It mainly solves the problem of digital communication between field devices such as intelligent instruments, controllers, and actuators in industrial sites, as well as information transmission between these field control devices and advanced control systems.

Customized cable length , cable material could be PUR, PVC for option .  

• Type : overmoulded 
• Straight or Angled : Straight or angled 
• Gender : Male or female at each side
• Pin Number :  5 pin
• Coded : A B Coded
• Cable Connector : moulded
• Cable Length : 1-3M or customized 
• Cable Material : PVC / PUR / TPU / RU / PTFE 
• Shell Material : PA66
• Contact Material : Brass gold-plated
• Sealing Material : Epoxy resin / rubber
• Insulator Material : PA+GF / TPU
• Applicable Temperature : -25℃ ~ +80℃
• Insulation Impedance : ≥100MΩ
• Contact Impedance : ≤5mΩ
• Durability : ≥500 cycles
• Molding Material : TPU/PVC
• Waterproof Level : IP67
• Execution Standard : IEC 61076-2-101  Industry 4.0 agreement, NEMA2000 standard

2. Profibus Fieldbus

PROFIBUS is short of PROcess FIeld BUS, is a field bus standard for industrial automation created by Siemens and other companies.

It is an open field bus standard, widely used in manufacturing automation, process automation, electric power, transportation and other fields around the world, and can be compatible with equipment from different manufacturers.

Since it was jointly launched by Siemens and other companies in Germany, profibus took the lead to become the German industrial field bus protocol standard code-named DIN19245, and was gradually recognized by other European countries as the European industrial field bus protocol standard EN50170V.2 (PROFIBUS-FMS-DP) . By 1999, PROFIBUS was extended to the world and became an integral part of the international industrial field bus protocol standard IEC61158 (TYPEIII).

There are three kinds Profibus : PROFIBUS FMS , PROFIBUS DP , PROFIBUS PA ，they can communicate with each other.

① PROFIBUS FMS

PROFIBUS FMS (FMS stands for Fieldbus Message Specification) is the earliest PROFIBUS fieldbus. It is mainly used for communication tasks in workshops. It can transmit a large number of complex communication services and is suitable for application in complex and strict scenarios. Its performance is not the best in terms of system response time, but it has very good performance in terms of controller and field devices, and data transmission with other devices.

② PROFIBUS-DP

PROFIBUS DP is short of Decentralized Peripherals, mainly used for data transmission and status monitoring between controllers and actuators, sensors, and is widely used in industrial automation.

PROFIBUS DP has a transfer rate of up to 12Mbit/s and is designed for high-speed communication between field devices. At this level, the central controller (PLC) communicates with scattered field devices (such as IO, drives, gates, etc.) through high-speed serial lines, and most of the data exchange with these scattered devices is carried out in periodic cycles. In addition, the controller also needs to monitor the equipment, perform status diagnosis, and communicate with alarms.

Using PROFIBUS DP can save a lot of wiring and labor costs. Many industrial field have a large number of sensors and actuators, and some control rooms are far away from the field. If they are all directly connected to the IO module of the PLC, a large number of cables will increase the installation cost of the system.
If the Profibus-DP method is used, the IO module is placed in the cabinet on field, the sensors and actuators are connected to the IO module, the IM module is installed in front of the IO module, and then the IM module is connected to the controller, so that the IO module can be connected to the control room. Use the RS485 (M12 To D-SUB9 cable) to distribute the PROFIBUS-DP bus, which can reduce the cost and workload of many cables, and because the transmission is digital signal, thereby ensuring the stability of data transmission and anti-interference.

③ PROFIBUS-PA

PROFIBUS PA is short of Process Automation, which is mainly used for process automation systems, it has very high safety, meets the requirements of IEC 61158-2, can supply power to field devices with communication cables, can cut off power in the event of a system fault, can Effectively avoid explosion accidents.

PROFIBUS PA connects automation systems and process control systems with field devices such as pressure, temperature and liquid level transmitters, completely replacing 4-20mA analog signal transmission technology.

PROFIBUS PA is widely used in process automation control systems in industries with relatively high safety requirements such as petroleum, chemical industry, and metallurgy.

The communication protocol used by PROFIBUS PA is the same as that of PROFIBUS DP. It can be interconnected with PROFIBUS DP through the conversion device, and the faster PROFIBUS DP can be used as the backbone of the network to transmit the signal to the controller. In some applications that need to deal with automation and process control at the same time, PROFIBUS DP and PROFIBUS PA can be used at the same time.

PROFIBUS Fieldbus Cables

Same as INTERBUS , PROFIBUS DP will use B Coded 5 Pin M12 To DB9 cables ( which is also called M12 to RS485 cables ) as PROFIBUS DP cables,features is the same.

For PROFIBUS PA cable , M12 A coded 3 pin cable had been used mostly, this overmolded M12 cable connector can be A B C D coded, and 2-17pin options, and 3 pin type is mainly used for PROFIBUS PA.

• Type : overmoulded 
• Straight or Angled : Straight or angled 
• Pin Number : 3 pin
• Coded : A Coded
• Cable Connector : moulded
• Cable Length : 1-3M or customized 
• Cable Material : PVC / PUR / TPU / RU / PTFE 
• Shell Material : PA66
• Contact Material : Brass gold-plated
• Sealing Material : Epoxy resin / rubber
• Insulator Material : PA+GF / TPU
• Applicable Temperature : -25℃ ~ +80℃
• Insulation Impedance : ≥100MΩ
• Contact Impedance : ≤5mΩ
• Durability : ≥500 cycles
• Molding Material : TPU/PVC
• Waterproof Level : IP67
• Execution Standard : IEC 61076-2-101  Industry 4.0 agreement, NEMA2000 standard

3. DeviceNet Fieldbus

DeviceNet is a fieldbus that originated in the United States and is most widely used in the United States and American companies based on CAN. It is a low-cost field bus system launched by Rockwell Company.
DeviceNet is a simple automation network solution that can connect basic industrial equipment（Such as: photoelectric sensors, valve manifolds, motor starters, process sensors, barcode readers, variable frequency drives, panel displays and operator interfaces） to the network with very few cables, reducing installation costs and providing installation efficiency.
In the DeviceNet bus, the same type of equipment of different brands can be easily exchanged, which provides a very important equipment-level diagnosis function while improving the communication between the equipment.

The specifications and protocols of DeviceNet are open, and it is an open fieldbus standard. When automation users need to connect devices to a DeviceNet system, the DeviceNet specification can be obtained from the Open DeciceNet Vendors Association (ODVA) at a low cost of replication. Users can not only develop products based on DeviceNet free of charge, but also seek development help companies to purchase simplified source code, development kits and various development services. All companies that manufacture DeviceNet products can join ODVA, and even companies that intend to manufacture DeviceNet products can also join ODVA, and can join technical working groups to revise and improve DeviceNet specifications.

Advantages of DeviceNet Fieldbus

• Low cost, high performance
• Support bus power supply and equipment hot plugging and other functions, the use range is larger and more flexible
• Object-oriented, connection-based fieldbus communication technology, easy to program
• Provides device-level diagnostics that are difficult to implement with hard-wired I/O interfaces
• Reduced cost and time for wiring and installing automation equipment
• Open networking standard without the need to purchase hardware, software or licenses
• Point-to-point data exchange, any DeviceNet product can produce and consume messages
• DeviceNet products can be used as client or server, or have dual identities
• A DeviceNet network can have up to 64 media access control identifiers or MAC IDs (node ​​addresses), and each node can support an unlimited number of I/Os. For example, a typical I/O count for a pneumatic valve actuator is 16 or 32
• Can be used in high noise environment
• The DeviceNet network uses a trunkline-dropline network topology, allowing taps to be used in the network, simplifying wiring and accessing the network on the one hand. And it is quite simple to add or remove equipment from the network, reducing the time of production line downtime and debugging, and improving the flexibility of the network

DeviceNet Fieldbus Cables

There’re mainly 3 types DeviceNet cables.

DeviceNet cables : M8 B Code 5 pin cables

• Type : overmoulded / cable assembly
• Straight or Angled : Straight or angled 
• Pin Number :  5 pin 
• Coded : B Coded
• Cable Connect : solder moulded / screw / solder assebly
• Cable Length : 1-3M or customized 
• Cable Material : PVC / PUR / TPU / RU / PTFE 
• Shell Material : Brass nickel-plated / Zinc alloy nickel-plated / PA-GF
• Contact Material : Brass / Phosphorus copper gold-plated
• Sealing Material : Epoxy resin / rubber
• Insulator Material : PA+GF / TPU
• Applicable Temperature : -25℃ ~ +80℃
• Insulation Impedance : ≥100MΩ
• Contact Impedance : ≤5mΩ
• Durability : ≥500 cycles
• Molding Material : TPU/PVC
• Waterproof Level : IP67
• Execution Standard : IEC 61076-2-101  Industry 4.0 agreement, NEMA2000 standard , IEC61158 , IEC 61784-1 CPF 2/3

DeviceNet Cables : M12 A code 5 pin cables

• Type : overmoulded / metal cable assembly type
• Straight or Angled : Straight or angled 
• Pin Number : 5 pin
• Coded : A Coded
• Cable Connect : solder moulded / solder cable assembly
• Cable Length : 1-3M or customized 
• Cable Material : PVC / PUR / TPU / RU / PTFE 
• Shell Material : Brass nickel-plated / Zinc alloy nickel-plated / PA-GF
• Contact Material : Brass / Phosphorus copper gold-plated
• Sealing Material : Epoxy resin / rubber
• Insulator Material : PA+GF / TPU
• Applicable Temperature : -25℃ ~ +80℃
• Insulation Impedance : ≥100MΩ
• Contact Impedance : ≤5mΩ
• Durability : ≥500 cycles
• Molding Material : TPU/PVC
• Waterproof Level : IP67
• Execution Standard : IEC 61076-2-101  Industry 4.0 agreement, NEMA2000 standard , IEC61158 , IEC 61784-1 CPF 2/3

DeviceNet Cables : 7/8 5 pin cables

• Pin Number : 5 pin
• Gender : Male /female
• Plug Type : Molded
• Cable Connect : soldering and then molded
• Straight Or Angled : Both type
• Socket : Front Mount Solder Type , Back Mount Solder Type
• Shell material : PA66 Nylon
• Contact impedance : ≤5mΩ
• Sealing material : Epoxy resin/Rubber
• Durability :  ≥500 Cycles 
• Contact material : Brass/Phosphorus copper gold-plated
• Insulation impedance : ≥100mΩ
• Insulator material : PA+GF/TPU
• Applicable temperature :  -25℃ ~ +80℃
• Molding material : TPU / PVC 
• Standard : Products comply with IEC 61076-2-101 Industry 4.0 Agreement NEMA2000 standard , IEC61158 , IEC 61784-1 CPF 2/3
• Application : Mainly used in power connectors
• Waterproof grade : IP67

4. CANopen Fieldbus

CANopen is a serial data communication bus protocol upgraded from CAN (ControllerAreaNetwork) bus under the leadership of German BOSCH company, including communication sub-protocol and device sub-protocol. It is often used in embedded systems and is also commonly used in industrial control fieldbus.

In 1986, the German BOSCH company developed the CAN (ControllerAreaNetwork) bus in order to solve the problem of data exchange between many controllers and measurement equipment in automobile production. CAN itself is a low-level protocol, only defines the physical layer and the data link layer in detail, which is not complete. Therefore, the CAN protocol allows manufacturers to develop high-level application protocols based on the CAN physical layer to meet the needs of different applications, then the CAN protocol is flexibly applied to various fields of industrial control. Because the application layer of each user is not unified, in 1993, the German BOSCH company designed and proposed an upgraded CANopen bus in a funded project of the European Union. The CANopen protocol redefines the application layer and related communication architecture, including object dictionary, network management, startup configuration, definition of various transmission objects, and so on.

Advantage of CANopen fieldbus

• His physical layer is very stable and reliable
• It can achieve a Hamming Distanz of 6, can detect up to 5 randomly introduced bit errors and 15 burst errors in the message, and has high reliability of the data link layer.
• Flexible use and compatibility with multiple devices
• good interactivity
• High cost performance
• Small product size, saving space
• Support redundant backup

CANopen fieldbus Cable

CANopen fieldbus mainly use M12 A coded 5 pin to RJ485 D-sub9 cabes and 7/8 connector 5 pin cables ( which is also used for DeviceNet fieldbus cables)

5 Pin A coded M12 to D-SUB9 RS485 CANopen Fieldbus cables

• Type : overmoulded 
• Straight or Angled : Straight or angled 
• Gender : Male or female at each side
• Pin Number :  5 pin
• Coded : A Coded
• Cable Connector : moulded
• Cable Length : 1-3M or customized 
• Cable Material : PVC / PUR / TPU / RU / PTFE 
• Shell Material : Brass nickel-plated / Zinc alloy nickel-plated / PA-GF
• Contact Material : Brass / Phosphorus copper gold-plated
• Sealing Material : Epoxy resin / rubber
• Insulator Material : PA+GF / TPU
• Applicable Temperature : -25℃ ~ +80℃
• Insulation Impedance : ≥100MΩ
• Contact Impedance : ≤5mΩ
• Durability : ≥500 cycles
• Molding Material : TPU/PVC
• Waterproof Level : IP67
• Execution Standard : IEC 61076-2-101  Industry 4.0 agreement, NEMA2000 standard

5. AS-Interface Fieldbus

AS-Interface is short of Actuator-Sensor-Interface, also called ASI fieldbus, suitable for small-scale automatic control systems, the cost is relatively low compared to other fieldbuses, it is a fieldbus technology at the device layer, through simple and economical Wiring method to connect sensors, actuators and upper control layers.

AS-Interface  has passed the  EN 50295  and IEC 62026-2  standards, and has been recognized and widely used internationally. ASI fieldbus can directly connect binary actuators and sensors to form an automated underlying control system, which is a monitoring network belonging to the lower device layer of the fieldbus system.

The AS-Interface bus system is a master-slave structure, and the AS-Interface host and controller (IPC, PLC, DC) are collectively referred to as the system master (MASTER). There are two types of slave stations (SLAVE): one is an intelligent sensor/actuator with an AS-Interface communication chip, and the other is a separate I/O module connected to an ordinary sensor/actuator.

AS-Interface fieldbus Cables

• Type : overmoulded 
• Straight or Angled : Straight or angled 
• Pin Number : 4 pin
• Coded : A Code
• Cable Connector : moulded
• Cable Length : 1-3M or customized 
• Cable Material : PVC / PUR / TPU / RU / PTFE 
• Shell Material : Brass nickel-plated / Zinc alloy nickel-plated / PA-GF
• Contact Material : Brass / Phosphorus copper gold-plated
• Sealing Material : Epoxy resin / rubber
• Insulator Material : PA+GF / TPU
• Applicable Temperature : -25℃ ~ +80℃
• Insulation Impedance : ≥100MΩ
• Contact Impedance : ≤5mΩ
• Durability : ≥500 cycles
• Molding Material : TPU/PVC
• Waterproof Level : IP67
• Execution Standard : IEC 61076-2-101  Industry 4.0 agreement, NEMA2000 standard

6. CC-LINK Fieldbus

CC-Link is short of Control & Communication Link, which is an open field bus recently launched by Japan’s Mitsubishi Electric, which is mainly based on the device layer. It can transmit a large amount of data at an unusable speed, and can also cover higher-level control layers. and lower-level sensing layers.

The CC-Link fieldbus can consist of 1 master and 64 slaves. Generally, in the automation system, the master station is played by PLC, and the slave station can be remote I/O module, special function module, local station with CPU and PLC, man-machine interface, frequency converter and various measuring instruments, valves and other field instrument equipment . And can realize the connection from CC-Link to AS-I bus.

The data transfer speed of CC-Link can reach up to 10 Mb/s. The underlying communication protocol of CC-Link follows RS 485. In general, CC-Link mainly uses broadcast-polling for communication. CC-Link also supports instant communication between master station, local station and intelligent device station.
CC-Link network has perfect RAS (Reliability, Availability, Serviceability) function. That is, it automatically returns, cuts off the slave station, and ensures the stable operation of the system through the error detection function of the link relay/register.

The communication form of CC-Link can be divided into two ways: cyclic communication and transient transmission function for transferring information between master station, local station and intelligent device station. Transient transmission needs to be completed by the dedicated instruction FROM/TO. Transient transmission will not affect the time of cyclic communication.

Advantages of CC-LINK Fieldbus

• Reduce the accident rate, improve the service life of equipment
• Save energy and reduce consumption, improve efficiency and reduce costs.
• Real-time
• Openness
• Complete protection functions
• Fast communication speed, advanced network, convenient wiring

CC-LINK Fieldbus Cable

CC-LINK fieldbus cable can also choose M12 A coded 4 pin cable as AS-Interface and FOUNTDATION fieldbus.

So here are the most popular fieldbus and fieldbus cables , if have questions or need help, welcome to contact us

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