Cisco Fanless DIN-Rail Substation-Grade Industrial Ethernet Switch IE-3100-8T2C-E 8-Port

The IE-3100-8T2C-E is a compact fanless DIN-rail industrial Ethernet switch built for control cabinets where space, heat and vibration are the real constraints. It provides eight 10/100/1000BASE-T copper ports plus two Gigabit combo uplinks, so a single device can aggregate field devices and still deliver a fibre or copper backbone uplink without adding another chassis. Because the enclosure is passively cooled, there are no fans, no air filters and no rotating parts to service, which keeps dust out of the housing and removes the most common mechanical failure point in a sealed cabinet.

As a substation-grade industrial Ethernet switch, the unit is engineered around wide temperature operation, redundant DC power and metal DIN-rail mounting. Dual 12/24/48 VDC inputs accept a second feed from a separate supply or battery string, so a single source failure does not drop the network. Layer 2 switching, static routing, VLAN segmentation and ring recovery are all handled on board, which means the switch can sit directly at the edge of an automation cell instead of in a climate-controlled room. Every unit delivered by Lonrise is powered up, port tested and firmware checked before packing, and the test record travels with the shipment.

• No moving parts: passive cooling means no fan failure, no filter cleaning schedule and no airflow path for conductive dust to follow.
• Substation-grade temperature range: -40 C to +70 C operation with a cold start at -40 C keeps the switch online in unheated kiosks, pole boxes and outdoor cabinets.
• Dual DC redundancy: two independent 12/24/48 V feeds can be landed on the same terminal block, so a tripped breaker or a flat battery string does not isolate the cell.
• Compact DIN-rail footprint: the narrow housing clips onto standard 35 mm rail and leaves room in shallow 300 mm cabinets for terminal blocks and wiring duct.
• Eight ports plus two combo uplinks: enough density for PLCs, HMIs, drives, cameras and meters, with a Gigabit fibre or copper uplink back to the aggregation switch.
• Ring recovery: RSTP, MSTP and ring topologies cut recovery time to milliseconds so line-side devices do not drop when a link is cut.

• Substation automation networks and secondary equipment rooms
• Factory automation cells, robot islands and machine tool cabinets
• Traffic, tunnel and water treatment roadside control boxes
• Solar, wind and energy storage monitoring cabinets
• Port, warehouse and cold-chain surveillance aggregation

Yes. The housing dissipates heat through the metal body, so the switch has no intake or exhaust opening. In a sealed cabinet there is no airflow to clog and no filter to replace, and the absence of a fan removes the bearing wear that normally ends the service life of an industrial switch. Keep the recommended clearance above and below the rail for convection, and the unit will hold its rating across the full temperature range.

The IE-3100-8T2C-E is specified from -40 C to +70 C with a cold start at -40 C, and storage is rated to +85 C. Components are selected for wide temperature drift rather than commercial 0-50 C parts, so start-up current, clock accuracy and link stability stay inside tolerance after a night at -30 C. That is why the same model is used in pole-mounted boxes, unheated kiosks and rooftop enclosures.

The combo ports accept either an SFP optical module or an RJ45 copper cable, one interface per port at a time. In practice the 8 copper ports serve the field devices while one combo port runs single-mode fibre to the control room and the second is reserved for a ring partner or a copper fallback. Combining the uplink into the same fanless DIN-rail unit avoids a second chassis, a second power feed and a second DIN-rail footprint.

Both feeds land on a 4-pin terminal block rated for 12/24/48 VDC, with the second input acting as a hot standby that takes over without a reboot. The DIN-rail clip is spring loaded, so the switch snaps onto 35 mm rail and can be released with a screwdriver, and an optional wall bracket is available for panels that do not use rail. Label both feeds and keep polarity consistent, then confirm the power LED before connecting the copper ports.

Each unit is unpacked, powered on both DC inputs, checked port by port for link and throughput, verified for firmware version and configuration reset, then re-packed with a shock-proof insert. Lonrise keeps the test record for every serial number, so a repeat order can be traced back to the same inspection batch and any field question can be answered from the recorded data rather than from memory.