Information at the touch of a screen
15 Jan 2000
Also at Drives & Controls, Schneider Electric (the new name for all the companies previously under the Groupe Schneider umbrella) introduced the latest additions to its Magelis range of HMI (human-machine interface) products.
Marketed under the Modicon and Telemecanique brands, the Magelis now features touch-screen terminals and ASi connectivity. The touch-screens are on versions with 5.7" STN and 10.4" TFT colour screens. Other features include plug-in PCMCIA memory cards for fast program transfer; a built-in printer for reports and alarm logs; real-time trending facilities; a full alarm logging function with permanent alarm log storage to memory cards; recipe storage options; and access to PLC variable adjustment screens.
The ASi (actuator sensor interface bus) connectivity feature is compatible with both the touch-screen and standard Magelis terminals. With this feature, the host control system can call up any of 127 separate messages stored in the Magelis terminal, and the terminal can feed back a maximum of 12 inputs to the host. The input signals can be derived either from a touch screen, or from keypad pushbuttons.
All models in the Magelis range are programmed and configured using exactly the same software package, which runs under Windows 95 or NT on a personal computer. All can be connected to virtually any programmable controller
