Speed of deployment is rarely a technical requirement — until a sortation spur has to be ready before the volume arrives. At that point the two remaining wiring tasks, power and control, are the ones standing between a mounted drive and a running line.

How fast can a section actually be deployed?

As fast as its slowest connection. Here both are connectors: 400 V AC arrives on the Q4/2 plug, the setpoint and status travel on the AS-i trunk tap, and the M12 ports carry the local I/O without a terminal strip in sight. The 3 kW rating sits at the top of the K section, delivering 7.7 A LO and 15.4 A HO — with 200% for 3 s covering the loaded start of the section it powers.

What does the trunk still not carry?

Motor current — and that is the point. The AS-i cable never sees the 7.7 A that drives the belt; it carries a few bytes per scan while the power comes from the plant distribution through the plug. That separation is why a 3 kW node costs no more trunk design than a 0.37 kW one, and why mixed-power AS-i lines remain the normal case rather than the exception. The fanless FSB housing keeps the section off the cooling-maintenance list entirely.