HMI mounting height

What are the opinions and standard you use for placement of HMI screens?

Most of them in this plant are mounted vertical (no slope) at about nipple high and I am 6' tall. This is the meat industry and there are a lot of short people, but I think most of them are way too low for anyone.

I would like to know If there are OSHA rules or even guidelines or other industry standards I can use to justify moving them as they are all due to replaced within a few years due to obsolescence.

TIA,
Paul

Hi

Most factories in Ireland that i work in request a height of no lower than 1100 mm and no greater than 1250 mm

That is for a couple of multi national companies I work for

Hope this helps

Donnchadh

So 1250 max that like 4'?
Farging midgets are making a cripple out of me...

Surely that can't be right for controls mounted vertical, perpendicular to the floor? I am looking for a floor to center-line measurement.

You should look into an ergonomic mounting assembly. I just quad mounted some HMI monitors in a Kiln control room yesterday.

Swivel and tilt, baby, swivel and tilt!

Bit_Bucket_07 said:

You should look into an ergonomic mounting assembly. I just quad mounted some HMI monitors in a Kiln control room yesterday.

Swivel and tilt, baby, swivel and tilt!

Click to expand...

Yes, I try to do there where feasible. Making them withstand the environment makes it hard to do that well, though. I have not been impressed with the very expensive wash-down rated HMI mounting arms that you can buy, so I usually hand fabricate them and get better results. Most of these antiques are just mounted in hinged screw cover boxes (NEMA 4X) bolted through stand-offs to the frames of the machines.

I typically mount my HMI's so the center of the screen is approx. 5'5" from the floor. No particular reason other than it seems to work for everybody here. Trust me...if no one here is complaining there is NOTHING to complain about.

my 2 cents,

Dave

Hi,
I have a new PV install coming up in a few weeks. I am also interested to know if there is a "Standard" height. I am in the process of making the panel drawings. The screen will built into the door of the panel. I have guessed at 5'1" for the center of the screen. or 1550 mm from the floor.

BD

bikerdude said:

Hi,
I have a new PV install coming up in a few weeks. I am also interested to know if there is a "Standard" height. I am in the process of making the panel drawings. The screen will built into the door of the panel. I have guessed at 5'1" for the center of the screen. or 1550 mm from the floor.

BD

Click to expand...

I would think that it makes a difference whether the operator interface will be touchscreen or HMI panel touchpad versus a PC with keyboard/mouse located below the monitor. For the latter setup, I'd prefer the monitor at eye height, though that could be inconvenient for a shorter person reaching up to access the controls.

Many electric utilities require a meter base center height of 5 feet 6 inches above the ground. Tall meter readers have to bend a little, and short readers have to stretch and look up.

I don't know if that is a nation-wide standard, or if it varies by region and average adult height. Maybe where there is a high percentage of immigrants, it is lower. Also, the percentage of female operators is a big factor. The more female operators, the lower the HMI would need to be.

EDIT: No, a quick Google search for "meter base socket height" varies all over from 22" minimum to 72" maximum, but 5'6" is a commonly occuring meter base height. Six feet seems to be the maximum allowed.
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=electric+meter+socket+height&oq=electric+meter+base+hei&gs_l=hp.1.0.0i22i30.1562.6890.0.9390.23.19.0.1.1.1.625.5986.2-5j4j2j4.15.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.6.psy-ab.I_ts779-YAM&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.&bvm=bv.43828540,d.eWU&fp=b3e2726991780028&biw=1024&bih=615

OkiePC said:

What are the opinions and standard you use for placement of HMI screens?

Most of them in this plant are mounted vertical (no slope) at about nipple high and I am 6' tall. This is the meat industry and there are a lot of short people, but I think most of them are way too low for anyone.

Click to expand...

I've seen various guidelines that suggest around 62" for HMI height. It's also generally advised that an operator look down slightly. See this white paper for an example (unfortunately, some of the data in the table with english measurements is wrong).

I can empathize with you as I'm over six foot, so this is far below my normal eye level, but it's average height, meaning half of the operators will have to look up and half will have to look down.

If my wife worked on the same panel should would either hurt her neck or have to get a box to stand on as she is only 4'10".

Generally, the assumption is that a tall operator can stoop, while you don't really want the short operators having to climb on things to operate the machine.

Of course this can be taken to extremes, back when I was a firefighter, we got a new station. Because it was a government facility it had to be ADA-compliant. So, all the counters in the kitchen were wheel chair height. Not having any handicapped firefighters this made little sense. It wasn't long before we discovered we needed to use a desk chair and sit down to cook as all of us were developing back pain from stooping over the counters while cooking.

I guess the bottom line is there is no one HMI height that will work for every situation. Ideally an HMI would be mounted on a telescoping mount with up/down adjustment buttons, simliar to a speaker's podium.

There is a big opportunity here for some enterprising individual to develop an electrically-adjustable food-grade washdown HMI mounting platform.

The closest device I could find is this Beacon air-adjustable platform. The HMI could be mounted on a frame attached to this platform, or a short operator could raise himself to proper height.

http://www.amazon.com/Beacon-Linear...=1363715073&sr=1-2&keywords=electric+platform

Thanks for all the feedback so far. It looks like I can just take a consensus among users around here and probably be just fine. I didn't want to step on any hard and fast rules and it is usually easy for me to get approval if I can say "OSHA says do this..."

Being the selfish git that I am, I usually set them at a centre height of around 1650mm or 65 inches. This is the perfect height for me (I'm 6'4")
Anyone that don't like it, I tell em 'tough'
Getting old is great, you can generally get away with being ornery.

Seriously, though, I find that it it much easier for a short person to stretch up a bit than it is for a tall person to reach down.

I always shoot for 66" to the center of the monitor on touch screen installations.