If I posted or sent a .mer file would some be able to tell me the PN of the PV+ and the IP address if it has one or how it is communicating?

The laptop is getting reloaded so I can’t try to get this information myself.

Thanks

Got it.

Would you mind explaining how? This info could come in handy some day.

Let's keep that information in a PM

Why??

There is a worry that RA doesn't want us to know it. But I have been told how, by different RA support people and they haven't asked me to keep it quiet.

If somebody knows differently please let me know.

Take it up with your good buddy Joshua

No really, the method is based off of an internal technote that has been taboo long before the now you see it, now you can't technotes

Rockwell says the lack of a built in mer to apa conversion is to "protect the author of the program". I personally say this is BS and it has always seemed more like just another flaw of the Panelview Plus product line. BUT because they state this reason, discussing it does violate our terms of service

Used to it was common to see AB HMIs being used with AB PLCs, but more and more I am seeing integrators, including me, using other manufacturers HMIs because of the Panelview Plus's lack of reliability. Yes, I know the Panelview Component is now out but only time will tell if it is any more reliable than the Panelview Plus, and it will take a long time to convience me to switch back after countless hours working with "firmware flaws" and "hardware glitches" of the Panelview Plus, not to mention needing to do this file "conversion" to add a simple pushbutton to a screen for a small company that doesn't have a PLC guy, much less an understanding of which files they need to store and which files they don't

But for those how have been unfortunately stuck with a Panelview Plus, a quick search of this forum will give you the information you are looking for since you are hardly the first to run into this problem...

The latest version of RsView supposedly will allow you to convert a mer to apa IF the author checked to box to allow this. I certainly hope the box is checked by default

TW,
OK!! Calm down, everything is going to be ok. Its Friday time to have a cool one.

Can't do that. Boss gave me a half day off today so that I could work this weekend. Got to get to it in a little bit

The original questions were:

"If I posted or sent a .mer file would some be able to tell me the PN of the PV+ and the IP address if it has one or how it is communicating?"

The answers are:

1. From the *.MER file I would be able to determine the size of the PV+ terminal screen because the display size is part of each display file. However, I would not be able to determine the part number because that includes the terminal type (PV+ or PV+CE) the power supply type, and the touchscreen/keypad options. That information is not part of the project file. The touchscreen/keypad options could be inferred by the F-key mapping or touch-cell enable configuration in the display configuration files.

2. You cannot determine the IP address of a PanelView Plus terminal from the runtime file or from the archive file. The IP address of a terminal is set either by DHCP or static configuration and is part of the Windows CE operating system of the terminal. The IP address of the terminal can only be set using the on-terminal configuration screens or the Windows CE Networking setup (on a PV+CE).

3. If you provided the *.MER file I could run it on my PC and allow it to replace my PC's RSLinx Enterprise configuration. That would show me what shortcuts have been configured and what ports (serial, ControlNet, Ethernet) and PLC interface addresses have been used. I could then go through the recovered program and determine which of those shortcuts are being used by database tags, global tags, and direct reference objects. These two pieces of information together will tell me how your PV+ terminal is communicating to controllers.

As I think Tim W. mentioned, the *.MER -> project file extraction is a v5 feature of FactoryTalk View Studio. The right way to exchange projects between computers is to use the archive file (*.APA) instead of the runtime.

But of course people lose the archives or lose computers or forget what version is running, and they are accustomed to being able to "just upload" from any platform. The PV Standard was pretty good at that.

To change the IP address of a PV+ terminal you need to get to its Configuration screens; hopefully the original programmers left a "Go To Config" button, otherwise you will have to use one of the workarounds to access the Configuration screen (separate topic).

Once you are in the main configuration menu, the IP address of the terminal is accessed by... let's see...

F4 Terminal Settings
Select Networks and Communications
Select Network Connections
Select Network Adapters
F2 IP Address

Thanks Ken.