The OPUS A3 series of rugged and stylish CANbus operator panels from Wachendorff Elektronik offers new levels of value, versatility and style to designers of vehicle-mounted systems. There are three devices in the series, each based on a powerful 32bit processor, a 4.3in wide-screen TFT display and each with two CANbus interfaces, one serial port and a USB interface. A second USB port is available as an option.
All 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. 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.
