How to use Proface touch screen with Mitsubishi Q series PLC

In recent years, my country's manufacturing industry has developed rapidly, and the degree of equipment automation has become higher and higher. A series of tall terms such as intelligent manufacturing and industry 4.0 appear before our eyes. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, every engineer and technician is working hard.

The prerequisite for achieving this ambitious goal requires sufficient hardware support. Today we will focus on how to establish a connection between the plc and the touch screen. People who have worked in factories have seen touch screens more or less. The device can be operated by tapping on such a screen, which feels amazing. How does it work?

The touch screen HMI is used as a human-computer interaction interface. Through the equipment process parameters (temperature, frequency, speed, pressure, liquid level, etc.), equipment instructions are issued to control equipment actions, and real-time feedback of equipment operating status, so as to achieve communication between people and the production line. Below are examples of commonly used touch screens and plc;

At present, two communication methods are widely used. One is serial communication and the other is network communication. Not much to say, just serve hard dishes!

The following picture shows the communication interface of the proface touch screen. The red box in the picture indicates the serial port, and the blue font is the comment.

It can be seen from the figure that the connection is COM1, using RS232C communication, then the other end of this serial port line is on the plc. Can it be used after the line is connected? Of course it has not been completed yet. The more important finishing touch is the communication parameter setting, as shown in the figure below.

Another way is network communication, which uses a standard IJ45 interface. That is, the data cable can be an ordinary network cable. As shown below:

The other end can be connected to the switch or directly to the plc network module. This method requires network configuration of the touch screen and plc to ensure that the two devices are in the same network segment, so that the interconnection of the devices can be easily realized. Assume that the address of the touch screen to be connected is: 192.168.68.12, and the address of the PLC is: 192.168.68.10. The address of the touch screen can be set directly on the touch screen. To communicate with the touch screen, the PLC needs to be set as follows. The specific settings are shown in the figure below:

The red part in the figure is the address setting area in the PLC Ethernet setting parameters

Completed the PLC settings, there is still one step left. We need to set the address of the PLC that needs to communicate on the touch screen. The figure below shows the settings of the touch screen on the proface, the red mark is the area where the address should be set in the programming software of the touch screen. (The rest of the brands are similar)

Seeing this, my friends all understand. The communication setting of HMI and PLC is so simple. As long as we think more and explore more in the process of work, the troubles will be solved quickly. So everyone think about this problem again. If a production line is large, three touch screens are needed to operate in different places. So how to establish a connection with PLC? See you in the comments section!

                               Note: The PLC used in the text is Mitsubishi Q series PLC, and the touch screen is Proface.