C-more Micro HMI -- Product Family Overview for Touch Screen Display for PLC at AutomationDirect

The best place to get information about the C-More Micro Panels is here at the dedicated website at C-MoreMicro.com. In this video we will compare the various C-More Micro panels so you can see the differences and decide which panel is best for your application. We’ll be using this side by side comparison on the C-MoreMicro.com website as a guide for this video and hopefully give you some insight as to what all of this means to you. Before getting into that though, let’s take a look at this hardware screen – if you go down into one of the panels – you will see that for each panel there is a link to a “specs” page. That link takes you to a page that tells you everything you need to know about the panel in just a few short pages, including Features, Dimensions, Detailed Specs, Wiring diagrams, PLC Connections, Supported protocols, Cabling, Accessories, Replacement Parts and a Software overview… make that your first stop when you have a question about a panel. Pretty much everything you could want to know is right there on that brief specs document. So … let’s go back to the comparison chart and start walking through it. The C-More Micro Family currently has EIGHT different models - six monochrome models – four 3” models and two 6” monochrome models; and the two color models, a 4” and a 6” for a total of 8 models in the family. These two monochrome units two offer both a regular AND high contrast touch screen – but the 3” also offers a non-touch screen version – so you have the regular contrast, the high contrast, the touch and the non-touch for four total models of the three inch panel. While the 3” models are 128x64 pixels – all of the other 4 and 6” models are ? VGA at 320-x240 – regardless of the physical size of the unit. The 4” and 6” panels are the same resolution; the 6” panels just have bigger pixels. That ? VGA gives you over 9 times the screen area of a 3” panel – for example, if we look at a 3” display that is fully populated by a single analog meter like this – this is our 3 inch display right here - and then we go convert that to a 4” panel – you can see that the meter that used to take up the entire 3 inch panel only takes up a small portion of a 4 inch or a 6 inch screen. So again, the 4 and the 6” panels have over 9 times the screen area of the 3” panels – simply because they have a higher resolution. Characters are the same thing: horizontally across the screen you can expect 21 or 32 characters depending on what mode you are in on the THREE in panel, but on the larger panels you get up to 53 or 80 characters, again depending on what more you are using. We already mentioned that all of the panels are touch sensitive, but the 3” also offers a non-touch version which can save you around 20% on the cost if your budget requires it. All of the panels offer optional keypad bezels EXCEPT the 4” panel. Note that while the chart says there are two styles of bezels for each of the panels – except the 4 inch, of course - each panel has different styles. For example, the 3” panels offer these with two different keypads – a numeric and an arrow only bezel, but the 6” panel offers a portrait and a landscape version of just the numeric keypad bezel – there is no separate directional arrow keypad for either of the 6 inch panels. All of the panels support graphics – both built in and user generated graphics BTW .. All panels have a beep – a little audio tone - support built in fonts and windows fonts, and support data entry methods of both onscreen pop up keypad on the touch screens, increment decrement objects and the 3” and 6” models have optional keypad bezels you can use for numeric entry. The 3” and 6” monochrome models come with 5 color LED backlights and the 4” and 6” color models have 32768 colors to choose from. The Monochrome panels come in The High Contrast or regular contrast models. The High Contrast Models really help if you need to view the panel from a larger distance, BUT they only have these 5 shades of Red for backlight color. The regular contrast panels have 5 different color backlight which is nice because the different color screens can help the user quickly assess what is going on just by the screen color. The Color models support 32,768 colors, BUT we haven’t mentioned one other advantage that isn’t shown here – the color panels have a much wider viewing angle. The monochrome STNs are good to about 15 degrees off axis, the Color panels are good up to around 70 degrees! Different axis have different angles of course… check out the spec sheets for more on that … All of the panels have 5 function keys – or 9 with shift – there’s a way you can implement a shift key to give you an extra set of function keys. Along with those function keys, all of the panels have 5 user definable LEDs on the function keys. The smaller panels can be powered directly from compatible PLCs without the need for another power supply. Of course, most of the Automation Direct PLCs support this feature. To figure out which PLCs support powering the panels and which cables you need to do it, simply go to the specs page for each panel and look it up OR better yet – go to the connectivity page of the C-More Micro site – scroll down to these links right here - and you can see a connectivity chart for the 3 inch panels or for the larger 4 and 6 inch panels. Let’s look at the 3 inch panel first. Here we can see that a 3 inch panel can be powered directly from a Click PLC’s serial ports 1 or 2 using this cable and this protocol. The Productivity 3000 – the same thing – id we use the RS232 port and this cable, then the 3 inch micro graphic panel can be powered directly from a productivity 3000 PLC without an additional power supply. So this chart shows you exactly what you need to power a panel for every PLC in the Automation Direct Line up PLUS many other industry standard PLCs to! One side note: This chart is for the 3” panels, if we click on the link for the larger panels, you will see a note at the bottom of the chart … this is reminding us that for the larger panels while you CAN power the panel from a PLC serial port, it is really only intended for programming. This is called the low power mode – in this mode the panel will have a diminished LCD brightness and alarm tones will be disabled. All the color panels can be programmed via USB in low power mode. Let’s go back to our comparison chart and finish this up ... all of the panels have the same indoor ratings, all the same agency certifications, and all of the panels support 999 screens .. depending on how much memory you have used, of course. Each panel has this much memory. And, of course, the programming software and simulator for all of these units is always free. You can download it right here. One final note –If we go back to one of the main website pages and scroll down to the bottom there is an ad for the C-More panels – these are the C-More Micro’s big brothers – they are available in 6, 8, 10, 12, and 15” models, but the key thing to note here is they also have BIGGER and more advanced FEATURES: things like data logging, Ethernet communications, more colors, audio playback – you can actually play back an audio file instead of just beeps - , and more resolution and of course the bigger sizes – AND you can even view the full featured models remotely from your desktop PC or smart phone! So if you need any of those features, be sure to check out the micros big brother C-More Panels. That should be more than enough to get you started – remember everything you need to know is located here at c-moremicro.com. Be sure to check out the other videos in this series. And as always, please send us any topics you would like to see covered – or - any other comments for that matter – we appreciate the feedback