A new human-machine interface (HMI) eliminates the need forengineers to buy their major motion control components as single package fromone vendor.

BrainChildElectronic Co. Ltd. rolled out a new HMI at the Design & ManufacturingMidwest Show yesterday that connects to virtually any PLC, as well as allmajor fieldbuses.

"Up to now, if you bought a PLC from any major supplier, youhad to buy their HMI, too," noted Mahidar Reddy, an engineer for BrainChild."But if you buy our HMI, you can connect to any PLC available on the market.You can also connect to any fieldbus."

Details from the Taiwan-based BrainChild were scarce, butthe company did provide a list to showgoers telling them which hardwaremanufacturers its product can communicate with. Hardware manufacturers includeAllen Bradley, Siemens, GE Fanuc, Hitachi,Toshiba, Yaskawa, Mitsubishi, Schneider, Modicon, Matsushita and many more. Inaddition to PLCs, the company's products can also communicate with speakers,microphones, bar code readers, I/O modules and inverters, as well as Ethernetand fieldbuses. Compatible fieldbus protocols include Profibus, Profinet IO,DeviceNet, Ethernet/IP, CanOpen and others.

Brainchild said its product is based on a Windows CEoperating system. The company also said its research and development staffdeveloped all of the necessary communication drivers.

Five models of the HMI, ranging from 4.3-inch to 15-inchversions, are on display at the show, which is taking place in Rosemont, IL,this week.