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Control Panels
How many of you
are wiring
hardware switches
to I/O?
Flat screens, color,
graphics,
animation, etc are
available
Unlimited
functionality
automation world in comparison with that of railroads is painfully evident (Be
honest, how many of you out there are still wiring hardware switches to nonvital
I/O boards at control points?). In contrast to railroads there are entire ranges of
products for HMI needs in the automation world which are scalable in terms of size,
price, capability, and gee-whiz effect. LCD screens, membrane keypads, touch
screens, black and white, greyscale, bluescale, fixed, portable, etc are some of the
options which make picking out an HMI as specificiable as a cup of coffee at
Starbucks. These panels are also quite rugged, some of them are even designed
to be installed outdoors. They range in price from a few hundred dollars to
several thousand dollars.
One of the big advantages that new panels offer is the ability to support all kinds of
different displays such as bar graphs, line graphs, special characters, and even
automated graphics as well as they appear on your home PC. This allows one
type of hardware to be used for different locations and applications because the
only changes required are in the application software (which incidentally is quite
easy to use from a graphic design standpoint but does require a defined data
interface to the controller itself).
For railroaders and others with mostly hardware panel experience it is important to
note that the most powerful feature of automation panels is that they are
normally capable of communicating on the same BUS as other system
components, which means an extremely fast serial connection. The result is an
almost unlimited capability in what can be built into the control panel functionalities.
Essentially any data which is available in the CPU program can be retrieved,
recorded, measured, and presented in whatever creative format your designer
can come up with. Some interesting industrial automation features which I have
seen are display of analog values over time, number of cycle per day bar graphs,
and counters controlling preventative maintenance tasks (can your panel tell you
the last time a maintainer checked your track circuit receive voltage, or how many
hours a specific signal lamp has burnt?).
Lessons for Railroaders:
1. Industrial panels are increasingly affordable, high feature and high function
devices which could provide for an unlimited amount of local functionality.
2. If you want to check out some examples look here and here.
