Diamond Systems EPS-24G4X Managed 24 Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch Boards with Four 10G SFP+ Ports

A vehicle or harsh-environment network with two dozen cameras, sensors and computers needs more than a 12-port switch, and it needs 10G uplinks to carry that traffic to a host computer or backbone. The Diamond Systems EPS-24G4X series answers that with a family of managed Ethernet switch boards that Diamond designed for vehicle and other rugged environments. The same board forms the heart of Diamond’s SabreNet-24000 rugged Ethernet switch, so the design has already been packaged as a complete rugged unit.

Every EPS-24G4X is a two-board design. An EPSM-10GX4 switch module provides the core switch and 12 PHYs, and the carrier holds another 12 PHYs and the remaining circuitry. Together they give 24 10/100/1000 Mbps copper ports at non-blocking wire speed and four 10G SFI ports on SFP+ sockets, with 4 MB of packet memory. All software features are manageable through a web GUI over any port, a command language over the built-in RS-232 port and SNMP v1/v2c/v3, and customer branding can put your logo on the GUI and serial interface.

The builds differ in software. The EPS-24G4X runs Layer 2+ switching with 4K VLANs, 8K MAC addresses, IEEE 802.3ad link aggregation, RSTP, MSTP and 8 QoS queues per port. The EPS-24G4X-L3 adds Layer 3 routing with IPv6 static routing, RFC 2328 OSPFv2, RADIUS accounting and port and queue policers. The EPS-24G4X-1588 pairs the Layer 3 software with an IEEE-1588 PTP clock circuit and PTP software support, and brings 1PPS I/O to the board for designs that share a precise time base. All three share the same hardware, ports and management, so moving between builds changes only the software features and the clock circuit.

At 24 V input a board draws 13 W with all ports idle, 20 W with all 24 copper ports active and 26 W with every port active, from a wide-range supply with built-in transient protection. Each is rated down to -40 °C, with latching I/O connectors and MIL-STD-202G shock and vibration resistance. Two heat sinks provide cooling: a low-profile heat sink between the carrier and the module, and a taller one on the module. The board is included in the EPSM-10GX4 development kit with schematics and bill of materials, and Diamond names vehicle and other harsh-environment applications for the series.