Flex cable for portable HMI

titanspark76

Member
Join Date
Oct 2016
Location
TN
Posts
42
I was wondering what others may use for a continuous flex cable for ethernet and some power / control signals. My application is for a small compact enclosure with a HMI and E-stop that would be undocked rarely. I would have the HMI power (24VDC) and an E-Stop button (possibly a couple Pushbuttons so lets say 10 wires plus the ethernet). Obviously this would need to be a continous flex cable.

I was hoping to find something that had a CAT5E cable built into another cable, but haven't found anything. Would it be advisable to just use a shielded twisted wire cable with enough wires to use for the ethernet and power/control signals? Or should I give up hope on using a single cable?

BTW I realize they make portable HMI's , but the customer is specifying Proface and doesn't want to go down to the "Handy" style screen size.
 
I've used coiled I/O cables but never spec'd an ethernet cable. I highly doubt you'll find one cable that does all unless it's custom made for you.

If it's rarely undocked then using standard cables and wire loom is probably the easiest option. If there's any restrictions in terms of sealing/exposing cables then a plastic 1/2" conduit would allow movement
 
Curious as to why it needs to be continuous flex if it will be docked most of the time?

I have used "hybrid" cables, but most are limited to two pairs of data + four signal lines and are intended to provide power alongside an ethernet connection. Murr and Pheonix are two vendors for hybrid cables of this type that I know of off the top of my head.

If you are using EIP, Profinet, or EtherCAT you might be able to put a remote IO module next to your HMI to handle the local I/O and E-Stop.

Beyond that, you're probably going to be stuck using some sort of flexible conduit.
 

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