Rugged panels

CANbus operator panels are rugged and stylish
Attractive CANbus operator panels offer new levels of value, versatility and style to designers of vehicle-mounted systems.

Available now from Sensor-Technik UK, the OPUS A3 series of rugged and stylish CANbus operator panels manufactured by Wachendorff Elektronik offers new levels of value, versatility and style to designers of vehicle-mounted systems. There are three different models in the series, offering cost-effective solutions to a range of application requirements.

All the OPUS A3 series operator interfaces are sealed to IP67 and IP65 with a wide -30 to +70C operating temperature range, enabling their use in any outdoor application such as agricultural machinery and other off-road vehicles. Each unit is based on a powerful 32bit processor, a 4.3in wide-screen TFT display and each has two CANbus interfaces, one serial port and a USB interface. A second USB port is available as an option. And each panel can be specified in landscape or portrait orientation both as a stand-alone unit or for dashboard mounting.

The three different models – the economy A3e, the standard A3s and the extended A3x – come with a range of different controls and interfaces. The basic A3e model, for example, has no keypad or encoder, but can be supplied with a resistive touchscreen interface, which is also optional on the other two models. The A3s comes with a rotary encoder, three fixed keys and eight softkeys, whereas the A3x incorporates an encoder, a 15-key fixed keypad and eight softkeys. All keypads can be supplied with custom colours, legends and lighting.

Further options include composite video inputs to enable monitoring of reversing cameras, a rear-mounted Ethernet interface, increased memory capacity, analogue and digital I/O and Bluetooth.

As with other Wachendorff interface panels, the OPUS A3 offers a choice of programming methods to suit systems designers of all levels of expertise. These include: the company's own Windows-based Projektor-Tool project development software; the popular CoDeSys IEC61131-3 compliant user interface programming language; and, because each A3 is based on an embedded Linux operating system, they can be programmed directly in C/C++.

Sensor-Technik UK offers full customisation, complete with programming and commissioning services for the OPUS A3 operator interface, and will use the units as part of complete CANbus systems.

Here's the second in the latest run of press releases from Sensor-Technik UK. The first was All the way with CANbus!