While the engineering team at EZAutomation prides itself on building products that effectively compete with the world’s lowest cost providers, the team’s primary focus is on innovations that advance the productivity and uptime of its clients’ production assets, says Shalabh “Shalli” Kumar, founder and chairman of the automation products manufacturer with its own production assets in the U.S. heartland.
Looking at what they have done in the design of the EZ7 HMI, we cannot help but agree.
The most recent innovation that brings this focus to life is the company’s EZTouch Series 7 human-machine interface (HMI), which was born of an understanding that an HMI’s touchscreen and display are often the shortest-lived components of any HMI.
“Because they are in constant contact with plant-floor operators, they see a lot more wear and tear than the rest of the logic and communication electronics,” Kumar explains. And when the display on a traditional, monolithic HMI fails, a shutdown invariably ensues—and even if there’s a spare readily available, at least 30 minutes of expensive downtime can be expected.
But with the EZtouch Series 7 HMI, a machine can be up and running again in as little as two minutes. “That’s because we split the front and back and connected the two with an HDMI cable,” explains Kumar.
If the touchscreen display needs to be replaced, just unscrew the damaged front panel, replace it with a new one and plug in the HDMI cable. There’s no re-wiring, no loading a new program and no network setup that would be required with an all-in-one HMI assembly. The door of the control cabinet does not need a large rectangular cut-out. Rather, only a 3/4-in. hole is needed for the HDMI cable. The electronics module can be mounted on the inside of the cabinet door, or up to three feet away for maximum flexibility. And because the logic and communication electronics aren’t being replaced, the cost to get and running again is only about half what it would be for a full HMI replacement.
We encourage you to watch a video that EZAutomation has created to demonstrate this hot-swap feature that allows a touchscreen to be changed out in less than 2 minutes: https://pdt.ezautomation.net/ez7-hmi-product-videos/
For more information on the EZTouch Series 7 HMI and other EZAutomation innovations, visit pdt.EZAutomation.com.
