August 9, 2010 - Maple Systems expanded their PLC support to more fully integrate their HMIs with controllers from Allen Bradley and Siemens. This important expansion in capabilities comes with their newest release of EZware.Among the enhancements of this upgrade is the ability to utilize tags with Allen-Bradley Controllers in such a way that they can be named with descriptive text the programmer chooses rather than having tag names based on PLC memory addresses.This is important on two levels. First, it means that a Maple HMI can work with an Allen-Bradley controller without changing the coding of the controller itself.
That allows a user to place a Maple HMI into an established Allen-Bradley process without disrupting the existing controller program.Secondly and from a practical standpoint, cryptic names for variable tags can be replaced with more appropriate nomenclature. That allows a user to create descriptive tags which are more meaningful to your unique automation process -- like "pumphouse7" for example. Also added into the new software are 26 new communication drivers. Included is a protocol for the new Siemens S7-1200 PLC.
