SIMATIC HMI TP1500 Comfort Outdoor 15-inch Daylight-Readable Touch Panel IP66 (6AV2124-0QC13-0AX0) CAN Electric — Industrial Automation Parts Supplier

This is the 15-inch member of the SIMATIC HMI Comfort Panels Outdoor range: the standard Comfort feature set — X86 hardware, PROFINET with an integrated switch plus a separate MPI/PROFIBUS DP port, two SD slots, recipe and archive management, 32 online languages — hardened for locations where an indoor panel will not survive. The screen is the same 15.4-inch 1280 × 800 panel size as the indoor TP1500, and the cut-out is the same 396 × 291 mm, so the mechanical envelope is familiar. What is different is everything around the glass.

The one 15-inch Comfort panel that is still in production

This is the fact that changes how the model should be specified. The indoor TP1500 Comfort is listed PM400 — phase-out announced, with the Siemens product status showing EOP 2024-10-01: that size has ended production and is supplied from stock and the spare-parts channel. The Outdoor version is listed PM300: Active Product — still actively marketed and built. So if you need a 15-inch Comfort panel for a new machine and you want a part that is not already in its end-of-life phase, this is the one to look at first; the outdoor hardening comes with it whether or not you need the weather protection.

That is an unusual buying position — normally the “special” variant is the one on the way out. Here it is the reverse: the standard industrial 15-inch has gone to PM400 while the outdoor derivative keeps going. If your cabinet is indoors you are paying for IP66 and −30 °C capability you may not need, but you are getting an active lifecycle, which for a machine with a ten-year service expectation is worth more than the delta.

What “Outdoor” actually changes

• IP66 front instead of IP65 — protected against dust and strong water jets, which is the difference between “splash” and “hosed down”.
• Powder-coated, UV-resistant aluminium front — the bezel does not chalk or yellow under sustained sunlight.
• Bonded, daylight-readable display — the optical bonding removes the internal reflections that make an ordinary panel unreadable in direct sun.
• −30 °C to +50 °C operating range — cold-start capability for unheated cabinets, winter commissioning and cold stores.
• Hazardous-area and marine approvals — ATEX/IECEx Zone 2/22, plus FM / cULus Class I Div. 2 and classification-society approvals for the Outdoor family.

What “Outdoor” does not change

Two honest limits, because they are the source of most field problems. First, the rear is still IP20 — the IP66 rating applies to the front face only, so the panel is designed to be mounted into an enclosure or cabinet whose interior is protected. It is not a free-standing outdoor device that can be hosed from behind. Second, the display backlight is rated 50,000 hours at 25 °C against the 80,000 hours of the indoor TP1500. That is the trade for daylight readability and a wider temperature range: the brighter, bonded outdoor display has a shorter specified backlight life. If the panel runs 24/7 in a hot location, plan for display replacement earlier than you would on an indoor unit.

For the smaller variant of the same concept, see the 7-inch TP700 Comfort Outdoor — same hardening package, same platform, smaller cut-out.

The two 15-inch panels look interchangeable and are not. The mechanical envelope matches, the screen size matches, the resolution matches — but the electronics are a generation apart, and that shows up at the worst possible moment: when someone tries to load an existing indoor project onto an Outdoor replacement.

The 24 MB to 12 MB step is not a rounding error

An indoor TP1500 project has twice the configuration memory available to it, runs on a later operating system and is engineered in a later WinCC Comfort version. Moving that project to an Outdoor panel means changing the device type in the TIA Portal — the two order numbers are separate entries in the hardware catalogue, not interchangeable aliases — and then checking that the project still fits in 12 MB. Projects with large recipe databases, long alarm texts or heavy archive configuration are the ones that do not. The engineering effort is real, and it has to be planned before the hardware is ordered, not discovered during commissioning.

The compensating advantages

Two of these differences work in the Outdoor panel’s favour. It draws 1.3 A / 32 W against 1.7 A / 41 W, so a 24 V supply sized for the indoor unit has headroom — useful when a panel is being changed on an existing machine. And it starts at −30 °C, which matters for unheated outdoor cabinets, cold stores and winter commissioning in northern climates where the indoor panel’s 0 °C floor is a genuine constraint.

Values per the Siemens technical data for 6AV2124-0QC13-0AX0. Confirm the cut-out, installation depth and supply against the current data sheet before machining the enclosure. The three weight figures are not a contradiction: use the device weight for panel and door load, and the packaged weight for freight.

The cold end is the harder end

A −30 °C rating is not the same as “works in winter”. The failure mode in cold outdoor cabinets is condensation, not frost: a panel that is colder than the surrounding air collects moisture the moment the cabinet warms up or the door is opened, and that moisture sits on the rear of an IP20 device. Siemens addresses this on the SIPLUS variants with conformal coating (see below); on the standard Outdoor panel the practical measure is an enclosure heater or a thermostat-controlled anti-condensation heater sized to keep the interior a few kelvin above ambient. Budget for it — it is the difference between an installation that survives three winters and one that does not.

The hot end has two numbers, not one

The rating is +50 °C vertically and +45 °C at the maximum 35° tilt. An outdoor panel angled towards the operator is exactly the orientation an installer wants in the field, and it is the orientation that costs 5 K of ambient headroom. On a sun-exposed cabinet in a southern European or Middle Eastern summer, the internal temperature can exceed the ambient by a wide margin; measure inside the enclosure at midday in the hottest month, not the air temperature in the shade.

Sun, and what the glass does about it

The bonded, daylight-readable construction is what makes the panel usable in direct light, and the powder-coated aluminium front is specified as UV-resistant so the bezel survives years of exposure. Neither of those protects the rear of the panel or the enclosure gasket — an outdoor cabinet still needs a rain shield or a sun shade if the door faces the weather, because the IP66 rating is a front-face rating on a properly installed panel, not a claim about the cabinet.

Salt and marine

The Outdoor family carries classification-society approvals, which is why these panels appear on vessels and offshore units rather than industrial cabinets with a coat of paint. The specific certificate set for your unit is what counts: Siemens states the hazardous-area approvals as applying “for inscription on device rating plate”, and the same discipline applies to marine — check the rating plate and the certificate for the serial number you receive, and keep them with the vessel’s documentation.

There is a real limit to what an IP66 front and a −30 °C rating can do. For 100 % relative humidity, condensation, chemically active substances and corrosive gases, Siemens builds SIPLUS variants on exactly this device — same 15-inch screen, same platform, same project, with a conformal coating on the internal electronics and an extended range:

All three are listed PM300: Active Product, which is worth noting: the whole 15-inch outdoor branch of this family is still alive while the indoor branch is winding down. If your specification calls for above +50 °C, condensing humidity or corrosive atmosphere, do not stretch the standard Outdoor panel — move to the SIPLUS order number, which is a different part with a different price and lead time. Tell us the environment and we will point you to the right one rather than quoting the standard part and hoping.

Engineering requires the TIA Portal with WinCC Comfort V13 SP1 including HSP or higher, and the device is selected in the hardware catalogue as TP1500 Comfort Outdoor — not as the indoor TP1500. Over PROFINET, MPI or PROFIBUS DP the panel couples to SIMATIC S7-1200, S7-1500 and S7-300/400 controllers, and EtherNet/IP plus Modbus cover third-party PLCs and drives. Mechanically, plan the 396 × 291 mm cut-out and the 77 mm installation depth, and allow the clearances the manual requires around the cut-out for mounting clips and self-ventilation.

Typical uses

• Outdoor operator stations on water treatment, pumping stations, irrigation and process plants exposed to weather.
• Wash-down and hose-down areas where IP65 is not enough and the front gets a direct jet.
• Cold-climate and cold-store installations that must start below 0 °C.
• Hazardous locations covered by Zone 2 / Zone 22 or Class I Div. 2.
• Marine, offshore and port installations needing classification-society approval.
• New 15-inch Comfort designs where an active lifecycle matters more than the last generation of electronics.

How to order

• Send the order number 6AV2124-0QC13-0AX0 and the delivery country to sales@can-electric.com.
• Tell us the mounting orientation and the measured ambient — tilt costs 5 K of headroom, and −30 °C capability is only useful if the installation is designed for it.
• State whether the location is hazardous-rated or marine, so we confirm the nameplate and certificate set with the unit.
• State the condition you need (new, new-surplus or refurbished) — condition and stock state are written on the quote.
• Confirm availability and terms per order; prices are quoted in USD, there is no fixed list price.