Setting up FX5U on GX Works 3 to Allow more than one GOT2000

If you are struggling to communicate to multiple devices via the Ethernet port of the FX5 please click the link below for your technical tip.

Connecting two GT2000s to FX5 via Ethernet.pdf

Here is a great Technical Tip on how to update your Mitsubishi manuals for IQ Works 2 through GX Works3 all in one go!

These manuals cover current Mitsubishi PLCs (IQ-F, IQ-R, Q Series) and Mitsubishi HMIs (All GOT2000 models). This is a great solution to find all of your Mitsubishi Manuals all in one place and you can even search for something specific!

Click here for your Technical Tip

Mitsubishi Electric has raised the bar for HMIs with the GOT2000 series, designed to optimise operator control and the monitoring of device and line status.

With vastly increased performance, advanced functionality, seamless connectivity to other automation devices, highly intuitive nature, tablet-like operation and high quality graphics, the GOT2000 series provides a range of models and sizes to meet the needs of the broadest spread of applications.

With their enhanced functionality, these HMIs extend capabilities beyond monitoring and visualisation, providing additional features that will help to reduce downtime, enable fast recovery from simple errors, increase availability and boost production efficiency. In addition, a software HMI version, the GT SoftGOT2000, realises all of the GOT2000 features on a PC or panel computer.

The GOT2000 offers seamless connectivity to Mitsubishi Electric automation devices such as PLCs, variable speed drives, servo drives and robots, simplifying automation system set up. Built-in Ethernet communication means users can operate the GOT2000 remotely from a PC (VNC Server) or even from a tablet or portable terminal. An MES interface option enables the GOT2000 to transmit data collected from PLCs and other automation devices directly to higher level system databases, eliminating the need for gateway PCs or complex programming. Furthermore, the GOT2000 comes with the “FA transparent” function that enables users to link from a PC through the HMI to any supported connected automation products.

FEAUTURES AND BENEFITS

• Benchmark performance
• Increased memory size
• Multi-touch/gestures*
• Beautiful graphics
• Advanced communications
• Easy screen design
• Backwards compatibility
• Horizontal integration

* Some functions such as Multi-touch/gesture are only available on certain models

For further information or to receive a quotation, please contact us.

Following on from the Success of previous editions, we have continued to develop and produce our very own ‘Mitsubishi World of Automation Solutions’ Short-Form Sales Guide.

This guide is an additional Sales Tool to help you with your selection of Mitsubishi Hardware for each of your Automation applications.

Within this guide you’ll find listed an abundance of Product Ranges in a pictorial format along with a brief description encompassing additional information along with the current UK List Prices for each product shown. We hope that this guide itself can offer you instant access to part numbers and cost whilst you are planning for new projects, upgrades or straight forward like-for-like replacements.

A typical extract from the Brochure below shows a brief description, dimensions, specifications and additional modules for each product:

L-series spread

Whether it be for peace of mind or a technical brain to pick, it’s good to know our Engineers are available to assist with your factory automation or control project. We believe that if our customers are knowledgeable they are more likely to get the best from our products. This means that our technical support Engineers will take the time to explain their advice and not baffle you with science. Therefore as a Sales Guide we hope this latest edition continues to assist with your hardware selection, and to further strengthen our customer commitment we offer in partnership the following services.

Technical Support

Our Engineering service supports you during planning, conception and completion of your project. We offer support, consultancy and service in various forms, may it be online, over the phone or on-site. We can help you with everything from equipment specification, system implementation and commissioning to on-going support and training tailored to your needs.

Online

Find us online where we offer a customer download area containing a comprehensive range of old to new manuals, application notes, data sheets and free software.

Telephone/Email

Drop us a call on 01162361861, where one of our Technical Support Engineers will be on hand during the day to advise and support you with any queries regarding selection, functionality, configuration, wiring and programming of our products and systems. Alternatively, you could always send us an e-mail to: support@cdluk.com

On Site Support

Our on-site support team can be booked to assist in design, commissioning or programming of PLCs HMIs and Servo systems. Integration with industrial networks, third party or legacy systems is their specialist area and they are prepared for the unique challenges that each visit can bring.

Training

Whether simple programming or complex system integration on either a software or hardware technology, our training team can provide a range of of standard or bespoke training courses tailored to your exact requirements. Our training courses carry the appropriate accreditation and certification and can lead to the achievement of a Mitsubishi Certified Engineer status.

To request a FREE copy of one of our Brochure’s, fill out the contact form below.

CDL continue to work closely with all of their Franchised Product ranges and are pleased with the arrival of the latest IMO i³ range of controllers that have now been expanded to include the NEW i³C colour touch screen controller.

The i3C offers users a larger colour display, a faster scan rate and a wider operating temperature.

Below are just a few of the Features and Benefits that we believe will help you to consider the IMO i³C colour touch intelligent control station:

Same built-in I/O options as our i³A and i³B controllers – with up to 44 points.

Faster logic scan rate (0.2m/SK) for larger or more demanding applications.

Offers 3 Serial ports (USB programming port plus 2 RS- 232/485 serial ports), unusual for a controller in this price range.

Includes unique onboard MicroSD™ memory for data logging and upgrading programs.

And there’s a few more…

Wider operating temperature (-10C to 60C) meets a greater
range of applications.

Only 3.5” deep and mounts on any panel space about 7” x 6”

Works with the i³ Series family of field installable add-on modules such as Ethernet, Mobile modem, telephone modem and radio modem-mix and match i³A, i³B and i³C and use the same options.

And also Programming Benefits

Ladder Logic, ST, SFC, FBD
Auto Tune PID (32 loops)
Floating Point Maths
Serial Port & Modem commands
Real-Time- Clock functions
Program and Subroutine blocks
Alarm / Recipe / Animation / Bitmaps
Multi-Language support and custom fonts

How can the i³ Intelligent Controller can work for you ?
IMO’s i³ controllers offer a unique solution since it is both a PLC and HMI combined in one device. It is also small, very powerful and has many unique connectivity features. One such feature is the GRPS modem option, which is ideal for applications where the controller is somewhere out in the field.

Remote monitoring, control and programming of devices can reduce service visits required and allow first class customer service to provide to end customers. It minimizes downtime, maximises productivity and reduces servicing costs by allowing the possibility of fault diagnosis without visiting site.

Many specialist vehicles contain a variety of high tech equipment and software. These system are often produced by several suppliers, therefore having a variety of different interfaces. The i³ solves this problem by providing the user with a single interface running on a touch screen PC.

Remote monitoring, control and programming have previously had been restrictive due to legacy devices only providing serial communications. Imagine being able to programme these devices from your office miles from their location on the factory floor! In fact the devices could be anywhere in the world.

If you are Interested in the latest I3 Product range then please contact us by filling in your details below

Mitsubishi’s range of HMIs are ideal for any industrial environment. Each of the human Machine interfaces come with powerful software and offer hardware products ranging from 4.3″ HMIs to 21″ industrial PCs.  Whether for the factory floor or for harsh environments, the all new iX Panels run the revolutionary iX Developer Software with drivers to communicate with your automation equipment.

IX Panel

The iX HMI has unique and intelligent navigation tools and using swipe and scroll on its screen makes for faster and efficient applications.  These tools include allowing one screen to show multiple instances that can be changed during runtime and you can also show multiple amounts of information in small areas using animated labels with variable speed and direction.

You can personalise the iX HMI by using C# scripting and .NET components.  Using custom colours you can build your own screens, customise dialogues in colours, fonts & touch area size, choose between 14 different trend charts, also available in 3D style.

These operator panels can share information with each other via panel networks so it is easy to share information between users and provides safer control over long distances.  If you need to turn facts into figures,  then just use the built in report generator to print or save Excel reports.  Using the panel web server you can design your own web page by using the tag data API and just log in.  This allows you to be able to see and use the information you see on the panel on a mobile device anywhere in the world.

TxA are the cost effective solution, the smaller TxA models offer cost efficient solution with solid HMI functionality for small and medium sized applications.  Display sizes 4, 7 and 10”.  TxB are the high performance operator panel and are the mid range models.  These are high performance and are suitable for medium to large HMI applications that require the handling of more data and utilising more functionality.  Display sizes 7, 12 and 15”.  TxC are for the more demanding applications and takes the HMI to industrial PC levels.  These are high performance for larger projects.  The largest 21” model supports full HD.

Please contact us for further information.

‘HMI Tools’ is a software package used to transfer program and data files between a PC and an E1000 HMI. Amongst other things, it can be used for transferring trend information, alarm lists, recipe data, html files, Java applets and bitmaps to and from a terminal via FTP (File Transfer Protocol). BUT there’s another way…

Now, if you’ve used HMI Tools before I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a powerful and useful tool, there’s no doubt about that, but for those of you who haven’t got it installed and just want to quickly extract a few files from your E1000, you don’t want to have to run an install from disc – especially if you’re out on site and don’t have the disc with you! And the other good thing is, you can do this method over Ethernet – no need to wait around for serial comms!

So let’s jump straight into it! Here’s what you need:

• A PC with an Ethernet port
• An E1000 HMI (not applicable with the E1012 or E1022)
• Cross-over Ethernet cable
• E-designer software installed on your computer

Step 1:

We need to first find out what IP address the HMI currently has assigned to it, the easiest way to do this is from E-designer. Click on Setup > Peripherals, you should see the following window:

As you can see, my IP address was 192.168.8.135.

Step 2:

Next we need to match the IP address of your PC to the range the HMI has, i.e. it needs to be 192.168.8.X. This can be done from your Network and Sharing Center: From the screen shown below (left), click the properties button (circled), to show the following (right):

Wireless network connection status step 2

From the second screen (right), double-click on the “Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) to show the following screen:

Internet Protocol Version 4 Step 2

From this screen the only thing you need to enter is the IP address which matches the range assigned to the HMI, in my case it was: 192.168.8.10. The subnet mask will populate itself once you tab across to it. As for the ‘Default Gateway’ and the ‘DNS’ settings, they can all be left untouched.

Step3:

So at this point we have made a connection between the HMI and PC over Ethernet – feel free to put that serial CAB30 back in your bag and connect the Ethernet cable. The next step is to prepare the HMI for use over FTP. From the project manager, double-click ‘Network Services’ (left) to show the window on the right:

E-designer Network Services step 3

From the Network Services window ensure that the ‘FTP Server’ option is ticked, then press the Exit button. Now simply transfer the whole project to the HMI – be sure to select TCP/IP transfer from the communication properties before trying to transfer.

Step 4:

Now we can now use any internet browser to access the files we want to view, but I found that using windows explorer was quicker – either way the process is the same. Type in ftp://[Insert HMI IP address here] into the address bar. Like so…

Windows explorer FTP Step 4

As you can see, we now have access to Alarms, Images, Trends, Recipes, HTML and if you click into the INFO.TXT file you even have access to basic information about your HMI such as: firmware version, IP address and spare memory etc. If you click into these folders you’ll find they contain .CSV files, which you’re able to open in a Spreadsheet, Ta Dah! This concludes this blog post, thanks for tuning in!

Sometimes you’re out on site with a dead laptop and you’ve forgotten your laptop charger, or you’ve forgotten that the E1000 HMI’s use a CAB30 cable and not the good old CAB5, OR you simply don’t want to fire up your laptop for a 2 minute job! Whatever the case, we’ve got you covered because the E1000’s offer you the facility to upload/download projects via a USB stick! Here’s how…

Now, obviously, at some point or the other it will be necessary to actually save the project to the USB stick, so it sounds like this would be a good place to start this post:

Step 1 – From the ‘Transfer’ Menu, select ‘Export project transfer file’

Find the path of your removable device and hit save! Be sure to save it in the route directory.

Step 2 – Insert the USB stick into the USB port of the HMI, you should then see the following message

The terminal will then show that a file structure is not available, it will then request that one be created:

Press OK and the project will be downloaded automatically into the terminal and run through the boot-up with the new project.

Congratulations, you have now successfully loaded a project into the terminal!