RS and Belden vanquish industrial cabling challenges
RS offers Belden's extensive Alpha Wire portfolio of high-performance, purpose-driven industrial automation cables hazard-matched to overcome the most extreme environmental challenges and satisfy the most rigorous requirements.
FORT WORTH, Texas, July 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- RS, a high-service global product and service solutions provider for industrial customers, offers Belden's Alpha Wire portfolio of high-performance industrial automation cables engineered to reliably withstand extreme environments, processing requirements, and flexing cycles.
Cabling is essential to industrial automation. It's responsible for transmitting power, data, and control signals between various components — including sensors, actuators, and controllers — and ensuring the efficient, reliable operation of automated systems. To successfully execute these various, vital roles, cabling has to ruggedly withstand environmental and operating hazards ranging from extreme weather and temperatures to shock, vibration, electromagnetic interference (EMI), high-pressure washdowns, chemicals, lubricants, oils, near-constant flexure, and even flames.
Belden's Alpha Wire portfolio offers two expansive product lines that are purpose driven and hazard matched to satisfy all of these challenging demands: the Xtra-Guard and EcoGen series, both of which are ideal for industrial automation applications, including articulated robots with rotary joints, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), robotic arms, gantries, machine tools, and conveyors.
Alpha Wire Xtra-Guard cable is engineered to serve applications with the most rigorous requirements and extreme environments, including Class 1 clean rooms and outer space, and backed by decades of field-proven experience in addition to compliance with an assortment of UL, IEC, CE, CA, CSA, FDA, and military specifications. This range reliably withstands chemicals, solvents, acids, fuels, water, UV radiation, abrasion, burial, and temperatures extending from -80°C to +200°C and exhibits excellent flame resistance and low-smoke, low- outgassing properties. It also provides excellent signal integrity, ensuring the reliable transmission of electrical signals.
Xtra-Guard cable is highly configurable as well, offering nearly 5,000 standard constructions and one of the industry's broadest ranges of gauges, conductor counts, and shielding, insulator, and jacket options. Options include 2–80 conductors, gauge sizes spanning 28 to 10 AWG, 300–600V ratings, Cat 5e or Cat 6A Ethernet, and moderate, continuous, and torsional flexure capabilities. Additional options include seven shielding options for exceptional signal protection against conducted or electrical noise in high- and low-frequency environments, nine jacket colors, and a variety of insulation and jacket materials, including a TPE flex cable option designed to provide the optimal mix of toughness and flexure for applications that require rolling, C flex, bending, torsion, and random motion flex.
This range is widely deployed in the automotive, industrial, machine tool, marine, medical, biotechnology, military, mining, petrochemical, semiconductor, solar, and wind power industries and well-suited for use in delta robots in addition to all the industrial automation applications also served by the EgoGen series.
Alpha Wire EcoGen cable is engineered to provide almost all of the same capabilities and options as Xtra-Guard cable and serve roughly the same applications. The primary difference is that EcoGen cable utilizes innovative, low-outgassing modified polyphenylene ether (mPPE) insulation and jacket materials free of any halogens, phthalates, and heavy metals and compliant with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directives to support customers submitting to Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) requirements.
The line's unique, eco-friendly mPPE insulation and jacket materials also make it up to 47% smaller and 65% lighter than the Xtra-Guard range while maintaining the same electrical properties, which makes it better suited for applications with challenging space constraints.
Other differentiators include fewer jacket materials (mPPE and zero-halogen PUR), six versus seven shielding options, a single moderate flex option, operating temperatures extending from -40°C to +105°C, and a slightly narrowed scope of environmental resistance capabilities, including UV, oil, abrasion, and flame resistance and low outgassing properties.
In addition to industrial automation applications, both the Xtra-Guard and EcoGen cable series are ideal for use in energy, medical, aerospace and defense, semiconductor manufacturing, and consumer electronics applications, including photovoltaic solar panels, wind turbines, oil and gas refineries, medical robotics, cardiac catheterization labs, radiation therapy machines, wafer manufacturing and transfer systems, cleanroom packaging machines, mobile electronics, drones, and outdoor LED lighting. They're also both available in medical-grade versions suitable for sterilization.
To learn more about the RS portfolio of Belden's purpose-driven and hazard-matched Alpha Wire connectivity solutions — including the Xtra-Guard and EcoGen lines, other multiconductor cables, industrial cable assemblies, hook-up wire, and cable ties — check out Belden's most recent RS Expert Advice article, "Selecting the right cables for harsh environment industrial automation applications," an interview with Julie Harnishfeger, Belden's Alpha Wire Product Manager, and visit the links embedded here.
For assistance identifying, procuring, deploying, and maintaining Alpha Wire connectivity products optimized for your unique application requirements, please contact your local RS representative at 1.866.433.5722 or reach out to the RS technical support team.
About Belden
Belden Inc. delivers complete connection solutions that unlock untold possibilities for our customers, their customers, and the world. We advance ideas and technologies that enable a safer, smarter, and more prosperous future. Throughout our 120+ year history, we have evolved as a company, but our purpose remains — making connections. By connecting people, information, and ideas, we make it possible. We are headquartered in St. Louis and have manufacturing capabilities in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. For more information, visit us at www.belden.com; follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X/Twitter.
About RS
RS is a high-service global product and service solutions provider for industrial customers, enabling them to operate efficiently and sustainably.
We operate in 36 markets, stock over 830,000 industrial and specialist products, and list an additional five million relevant for our industrial customers, sourced from over 2,500 suppliers. This extensive range supports our customers across the industrial lifecycle of designing, building, and maintaining equipment and operations. We enhance their experience through a tailored service model, leveraging our efficient physical, digital, and process infrastructure sustainably. We combine a technically led and digitally enabled approach with an exceptional team of experts; ultimately, it's our people that make the difference.
Our purpose, making amazing happen for a better world, reflects our focus on delivering results for people, planet, and profit.
RS Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange with stock ticker RS1 and in the year ended 31 March 2025 reported revenue of £2,904 million.
For more information, please visit https://www.rsgroup.com/ or connect with us on LinkedIn or X (Twitter).
About RS in the Americas
In the Americas region, RS stocks more than 250,000 industrial and electronic products from more than 700 trusted suppliers. These solutions cover categories extending from automation and control equipment to interconnect, passive, active, and electromechanical components and include more than 80,000 high-quality, competitively priced RS PRO products. For more information, please visit https://us.rs-online.com or connect with us via social media on Facebook, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and YouTube.
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Editorial Contact & Media Inquiries:
Erica Goode, RS Director of Marketing – U.S. and Canada
Erica.Goode@rsgroup.com
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