Why the 1746-C9​ Is the Most Specified SLC 500 Rack Expansion Cable in Legacy Panel Builds

Description:

The Allen-Bradley 1746-C9​ is a 36-inch (914.4 mm) rack interconnect cable manufactured by Rockwell Automation for the SLC 500 modular programmable controller family. It is a pre-engineered backplane expansion cable that links a local SLC 500 chassis to an expansion chassis, carrying both parallel backplane communication signals and system DC power across a single shielded ribbon assembly.Rather than functioning as a simple wiring accessory, the 1746-C9​ is what allows two or three physically separate SLC 500 chassis to behave as one logical I/O structure with unified addressing. Because the SLC 500 backplane is a parallel bus with tight timing, the cable is a designed system component — length, shielding, and connector keying are all specified by Rockwell, and substituting a generic ribbon cable is a known cause of intermittent I/O faults.

Category:
Contact Us WhatsApp / Wechat:+8618150087953
Phone:+86 18150087953
Email:sales@cxplcmro.com

Description

 

Application Scenarios:

A municipal water treatment plant had run the same SLC 5/04 on its filter backwash sequence for over nineteen years. The original 1746-A10 chassis was full — every slot populated — and a new set of valve position feedback points from a third filter train had nowhere to land. The plant faced a choice that is familiar to anyone maintaining installed SLC 500 base: rip out a working, validated control system and migrate to CompactLogix, or expand what was already there. A full migration meant re-validating the backwash sequence, re-commissioning, retraining operators, and absorbing a multi-week outage on a process that could not be taken offline during wet weather season.The expansion route won. A second 1746-A7 chassis was mounted in the same enclosure column, and a 1746-C9​ linked it to the local chassis. Because the cable carries backplane data and DC power in one assembly, the expansion rack needed only its own 1746-P power supply — no additional communication module, no configuration in RSLogix 500 beyond what the SLC automatically recognizes, and no change to the existing ladder logic addressing for the original ten slots. The new valve feedback points simply appeared as additional I/O in the same logical image. The plant added capacity in a single shift instead of a multi-week migration, at a fraction of the cost, with the original validated program untouched.This is precisely the role the 1746-C9​ plays across the installed base: it is the difference between a 300 expansion and a 50,000 migration. It matters most in water and wastewater, packaging machines, material handling, aggregate and cement plants, food and beverage lines, and older automotive sub-assembly cells — anywhere a SLC 500 has been running reliably for two decades and the requirement is to add I/O rather than replace the platform. It also serves as the critical spare: when a legacy panel loses its expansion rack to a damaged cable, the 1746-C9​ is the part that restores production in minutes rather than days.

Parameter:

Main Parameters Value/Description
Product Model 1746-C9
Manufacturer Allen-Bradley (Rockwell Automation)
Product Category Chassis / Rack Interconnect Cable (SLC 500 backplane expansion accessory)
Cable Length 914.4 mm (36 in. / 3 ft) — the mid-range option in the 1746-C series, suited to vertically stacked chassis in one enclosure
Compatible Chassis 1746-A4 (4-slot), 1746-A7 (7-slot), 1746-A10 (10-slot), 1746-A13 (13-slot), in any combination
Connector Type Multi-pin high-density ribbon bus connectors at both ends, 50-pin (2 × 25) class, with locking tabs and rigid shrink-wrap strain relief
Keying Design Opposite key orientation at each end — key on the outside of the connector at one end, inside at the other — making reversed or cross insertion mechanically impossible
Signal Carried Parallel backplane communication bus plus system DC power (logic and backplane supply) between local and expansion chassis
Backplane Current Rating 110 mA at 5V DC; 85 mA at 24V DC — the budget consumed per slot when calculating expansion power headroom
Shielding Fully shielded ribbon construction for EMI resistance in cabinets containing drives, contactors, and motor starters
Wiring Conductor 22 AWG stranded copper, industrial PVC jacket resistant to oil and abrasion
Recommended Chassis Spacing 152.4 mm (6 in.) to 914.4 mm (36 in.); maintain maximum 127 mm (5 in.) separation when stacking two 1746-A13 chassis
Clearance Requirement Minimum 101.6 mm (4 in.) clearance at the side of the chassis to accommodate the required cable bend radius
Maximum System Expansion Up to three chassis total (one local plus two expansion), requiring two interconnect cables
Operating Temperature -20 °C to +60 °C (some documentation cites up to +75 °C; refer to the original manual for your installation)
Installation Orientation Cable must exit the right-hand side of the chassis containing the CPU; reverse routing is an incorrect installation
Weight Approx. 0.03–0.16 kg depending on packaging reference; Rockwell lists 0.352 kg shipping weight
Certifications UL, CSA, CE — suitable for industrial control panels in North American and European markets
Connection Hardware Uses 1746-RT32 connection hardware family
Installation Document Rockwell publication 1746-IN029 (Rack Interconnect Cables, catalog numbers 1746-C7, 1746-C9, 1746-C16)
Lifecycle Status Discontinued by Rockwell Automation as of December 31, 2022; no planned direct replacement — available through surplus, refurbished, and new-old-stock channels
Country of Origin China; UPC 662073521624
Contact Us WhatsApp / Wechat:+86 18150087953
Phone:+86 18150087953
Email:sales@cxplcmro.com