Shop Network

Hi guys! This may be posted somewhere on here...I haven't found it yet. I was wondering how everyone sets up their shop network. We have a new shop and I am tasked with the network side of things. Only a few machines now, but will expand in the future. Thoughts on how shops normally go about it would be great. The machines dont need to have access to the internet, just have program files dropped in.

Thanks

Few things for thought:
1. No more than 236' of wire between the machine and a network switch. (Remember to add the "going up" and "going down" to the linear distance.)
2. Don't run the network cable parallel with high voltage power cables.
3. Put the switch in a filtered / ventilated network switch box, not out in the open.
4. Use a higher quality network switch and put the switch on an AVR-UPS.
5. Set the stuff in the shop to a separate VLAN vs the office stuff that has internet service.
6. Create an IP table in Excel to keep track of which machine / equipment is on which IP and post where needed.

A little dislexis? Its 326 feet 100 meters

Just for us, the unknowing about such things, why not fiber
instead of wire ?

Fiber is faster but much more expensive unless you have the tooling and training.

Use CAT6 cable and hardware and use a router as a switch so you can build in protection via internal firewalls.

We recently had training on this and know enough to be dangerous regarding routers but know that there are folks that do these things.

Example is you add lines of code specifically directing traffic on each port to where it can go and what has access.

It can reduce hacking types of things a bit and isolate each machine as a seperate network so bandwidth can be increased.

Do look at fiber between routers and servers as that gives the best bandwidth and protection and usually installed where it is safe.

Cables to machines , ot so much.


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garyhlucas said:

A little dislexis? Its 326 feet 100 meters

Click to expand...

Maybe just a little.......

I hesitate to recommend this, but I did a shop with twelve machines and a toolroom using mostly wireless. Used ethernet-to-wireless bridges for most of the machines, a couple were serial and needed a slow little peecee to interface. I was initially shocked that there weren't more problems, but it actually worked well and was easier than pulling wire or fiber all over the place. We did invest in an upscale antenna for the connection to the hub (it was designed as a hub and spokes.)

Cheap. Easy. Worth a try.

In our shop we set up what is called a NAS (network attached storage). We don't have our CNC's wired to the network but I see no reason it couldn't be done. In our case we simply don't have the ethernet option on the CNC's.

Our unit has dual 500 gb hard drives with one set up as a backup. Its expandable to like 10 hard drives and can be configured in various RAID configurations. The other cool thing about it is you can remote assess any of your files if you have an internet connection. Wanna do a little bit of design/programming at home or out on the road?... No problem with this thing. It fire-walled and password protected as well. We only have 3 computers on the network but expandable to a lot more. Certain people have access to specific folders, read and/or write access.

The one I have cost around $1600 and I paid my IT guy a few hundred dollars for the install and set up. You can certainly spend more or less depending on your needs.