Anyone used one of these combined HMI-PLC units from China?

[Jelly_Sheffield]

I was looking for a HMI to suit my collection of salvaged Mitsubishi PLC's and stumbled across these.

All-in-one HMI PLC Integrated 4.3 inch Touch Screen for Mitsubishi FX or Delta, Relay Transistor Analog NTC TC Optional

Cheaper than a standalone HMI, and comes with an integrated (copy of a) FX3U PLC... In principle that's great, but I can't help feeling there's a catch.

Anyone seen these out in the wild?

 

[Robotstar5]

We used a few of the CuTouch combined units at one place I worked, very versatile bit of kit.

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

I mean that's pretty encouraging, did the PLC functionality perform as expected?

I've heard some stories of the more complicated functions in the PLC (analog processing, PID) not functioning as expected or just straight up erroring out when the program is loaded.

 

[m_c]

CuBloc/CuTouch stuff has been around for quite some time, and is South Korean in origin, so pretty good stuff.

I have looked at the Chinese options for a couple ideas, as the pricing is good, but I can't help feel it will mostly be let down in the support/translation. For basic functions, you could probably stagger through it, but lack of a good translation for the more in depth features might be a problem.
I got as far as looking at a couple the manufacturer websites for specs/options, but never got as far as looking for English documentation or trying the software, which is where I'd start before buying any.

 

[Robotstar5]

I mean that's pretty encouraging, did the PLC functionality perform as expected?

I've heard some stories of the more complicated functions in the PLC (analog processing, PID) not functioning as expected or just straight up erroring out when the program is loaded.

I left all the programming to the fitter I worked with he knew the programming language much better than me - Cubloc

 

[Jelly_Sheffield]

CuBloc/CuTouch stuff has been around for quite some time, and is South Korean in origin, so pretty good stuff.

It looks well supported, but falls down a bit on price, compared to buying standalone HMI because I already have a huge tub of PLC's.

If I was buying all new, it would probably be worth the effort to learn their system, one to keep a note of for the future.

I have looked at the Chinese options for a couple ideas, as the pricing is good, but I can't help feel it will mostly be let down in the support/translation. For basic functions, you could probably stagger through it, but lack of a good translation for the more in depth features might be a problem.
I got as far as looking at a couple the manufacturer websites for specs/options, but never got as far as looking for English documentation or trying the software, which is where I'd start before buying any.

This was the attraction of using a direct clone, I already know the language and have the software for Mitsubishi, so I don't have to rely on the documentation.

 

[daleyd]

Can’t say over ever used one of those, but I have got a few Chinese hmi’s.

I’ve got one linked to a Schneider drive (Samkoon) that works well enough, some of the functions and software is a bit oddly worded but generally makes sense and you can muddle through.

I was going to use another one of the same type, but when I tried programming it I couldn’t make it talk to 2 drives at the same time, I lost patience and put a Schneider hmi which I had on there. I’ve subsequently worked it out (was just a syntax error on my part, but the manual isn’t the best!) but I’ll stick with the Schneider one as I know what I’m doing with that.

As well as Samkoon I picked up a couple of Chinese version of Beijer hmi - they seem to be aimed squarely at the lower end of the market but have got a good set of features and drivers built in. I’ve only done real basic stuff with them but they have pretty much everything you find in the much more expensive models, such as scripting, trends, etc

We did make a small 1/4 din sized plc and hmi combined at work that ran on codesys, but it never really took off so we discontinued it after a few years. Shame really.