Omron NS5 Series Programmable Terminal HMI Touch Screen

The Omron NS5 series programmable terminals are compact and feature-rich human-machine interface devices offering a complete operator interface solution for small to medium scale industrial automation applications. The series includes four models sharing common core hardware and display characteristics: NS5-SQ00B-V2, NS5-SQ00-V2, NS5-SQ01-V2, and NS5-SQ01B-V2. These variants differ primarily in their communication interface complement and memory configuration, allowing users to select the model best matched to their PLC system architecture and application requirements. The NS5 series terminals incorporate a 3.5-inch diagonal thin-film transistor TFT color LCD display delivering vibrant graphics and clear visibility under typical industrial lighting conditions.

Display and Visual Interface

The TFT LCD display provides a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels across the active screen area, resulting in QVGA format graphics suitable for effective machine interface design. The color palette exceeds 65,000 displayed colors, enabling visually rich operator screens including process mimics, animated machine diagrams, trend charts, and status indicators. The resistive touch panel is overlaid onto the LCD, detecting operator finger or stylus contact at any position on the screen surface. This touch sensitivity enables interactive screen navigation, button actuation, numeric data entry through pop-up keypads, and selection from list boxes and other graphical controls implemented by the application programmer. The long-life LED backlight illuminates the LCD, providing consistent brightness across thousands of operating hours without requiring periodic lamp changes.

Connectivity and Communication Integration

The NS5 series terminals provide versatile connectivity options for integration with industrial automation networks. Built-in Ethernet communication ports enable high-speed connection to PLC systems, factory networks, and office IT infrastructure, supporting both OMRON-specific and open protocols including standard TCP/IP for data exchange with SQL databases. This database connectivity allows the terminal to directly read from or write to external databases without requiring middleware software, with function blocks in the PLC handling connection establishment and data transfer. Serial communication ports with RS-232C and RS-422A/485 electrical compatibility support direct connection to a wide range of OMRON and third-party PLCs and other serial devices using vendor-specific protocols. USB ports on compatible models provide convenient connectivity for memory sticks used to transfer screen data, log production information, or upload recipe files without requiring a network connection.

Application Development Environment

System integrators create operator interface applications for NS5 series terminals using the NS-Designer software package, a full-featured development environment that includes a comprehensive library of graphic objects and communication drivers. The software provides graphic screen editors for designing terminal layouts, property editors for configuring object behavior and appearance, and tag database management for organizing PLC variables. The development process involves first connecting the terminal to a personal computer via Ethernet or USB, then downloading the compiled application file to the terminal’s internal flash memory. Once downloaded, the terminal operates independently of the development PC, executing programmed functions and communicating with the PLC automatically upon power-up.

Additional Functionality and Special Features

Beyond standard screen display and touch functions, the NS5 series includes advanced capabilities extending operator interface usefulness. Alarming functions monitor PLC data for out-of-limit conditions and present alarm messages to operators in chronological order with acknowledgment logging and history storage. Recipe management features handling storing, recalling, and transferring sets of product parameters from the terminal to the PLC, enabling rapid changeover between products. Data logging records production information and process data to CSV form to USB memory or network locations for quality analysis. Live video input capabilities are supported on certain NS5 models where analog video signals can be displayed within terminal screens alongside graphics, showing real-time camera views of machine operation for remote monitoring.