At April`s Hannover Fair, Siemens will be showing a new easy-to-use operator panel for many of its drives which, it claims, will speed up commissioning and reduce downtimes. The Sinamics IOP (intelligent operator panel) is designed for use with the Sinamics G120, G120D and G110D standard drives, as well as the Simatic ET200 frequency converters.

The panel, which includes a large plain-text display, is said to be suitable for use either by operators with little prior knowledge, or by drives experts. Help texts and a parameter filter usually enable a drive to be commissioned without a printed parameter list, Siemens says.

Application wizards guide the user interactively through the commissioning of applications such as pumps, fans, compressors and materials-handling. Process variables can be monitored directly on the IOP display, allowing faults to be detected and rectified quickly.

The menu-based display is operated using a rotary knob.  Depending on the type of converter, the IOP can either be mounted on the drive or in a control cabinet door. It can also be used as a mobile handheld device.