Manufacturing Week, 30 October – 1 November 2001

Pro-face UK recently had a stand at the Manufacturing Week exhibition at the NEC. The stand was shared with Xycom Automation, who became part of the Pro-face group of companies earlier this year. Xycom specialise in Industrial PCs and flat panel monitors, complementing the Pro-face range and enabling us to provide even more PC and Flat Panel monitor solutions.

    We were pleased to have many of our customers visit us on the stand – a chance to put faces to names.  We also met new contacts and companies, interested in what we had on show, with a view to using them for future projects.

    On the Pro-face side, we exhibited the existing GP*77 series, which many of you will be familiar with, alongside the new GP2000 series, that is proving popular as the next step up from the 77 series.  Available in 7.4”, 10.4” and 12.1” TFT colour display, these units have double the memory (4MB FEPROM), 256 colours, a printer port and built in Ethernet.  

    Also on show were the new GP2300 series that will start to become available in early 2002.  These are 6” panels available in monochrome, STN and TFT colour and new features include built in CF card, more memory and a smart aluminium body, that also acts as a heatsink.

    As with all Pro-face GPs, the GP2000 series uses the popular GPPRO/PB3 editor software package - V5.0 or above (We are currently on V5.03.) - and you are guaranteed an easy upgrade route should you wish to start using these new products in place of the older generation.

    Another exciting new release on show was the LogiTouch, a graphic touch panel display that combines all control, operation and display functions into a single economical controller, available in 3 “Types”.  Type A has built in DIO, type B has the flex network I/O interface and Type C has built in SIO plus flex network I/F.  

    We also displayed the new PL-X920 Series of Industrial PC's. These include a 12.1" and 15" TFT versions as well as the box type industrial computers. They come with an Intel Pentium III 700 MHz processor, 128MB SDRAM, 10 GB hard drive, 10/100TX Ethernet, 2x USB ports. These industrial PC's also can have a fan-less operation that also allows for use in a clean room. This new range of industrial PC's gives you more power at a better price.       

   To summarise, we had a great exhibition and got the chance to show current and potential customers the whole product range from current to not yet released products. We also used the opportunity to further show the full capabilities of products that might otherwise have gone unnoticed and to show our collaboration with Xycom.

    For more information on these products and others in the range, please see the relevant sections of this website.

Xycom Automation products can be seen at www.xycom.com

Tony Lane, General Manager Pro-face UK Ltd