Panelview Plus replacement (redux)

[paulengr 44]

Ok...this has made the rounds before but I think I'm looking for something a little different. I've pretty much had it with Panelview plus's. They don't like even slightly noisy power. They are finicky about grounding. They are finicky about temperature and they do NOT live up to their temperature specs. They don't like vibration of any sort. In short, they are a very, very crappy replacement for a Panelview standard. The two features that I'm having trouble finding from competitors is BUTTONS, as in you've got to be joking if you think I'm going to use a touch screen in an abrasive dust environment, and compatibility with PCCC or "AB Ethernet" or "DF1-Ethernet" or whatever you want to call the PLC-5 / SLC Ethernet protocol. It seems like I can always find one or the other, but not both. Anyone know of such a beast? Most of the current displays are only 10".

[TimWilborne 108]

Redlion G3. I used several of them now and have been very happy with them http://www.redlion.net

[finfin 0]

I'm happy to say that I don't have any of your problems with PanelView Plus. we use mainly 2711P-K7C4D1 PANELVIEW PLUS 700, COLOR KEYPAD. We have installed 60+ and don't experience these problems... at all. Maybe you got a lemon.

[Leadcommander 0]

Like finfin I have installed 8 Panelviews Plus so far and am more than happy with them. Most have been 10'' some touch some keypads. Have only had one fail after the electrician drilled holes in the stainless steel next to the panelview and filled it with cutting fluid. Some of these are subjected to constant machine vibration. sorry to hear about your troubles

[paulengr 44]

We've had multiple incidents in two different plants with Panelview plus's. In the vibration case, it was a poor installation location. It managed to destroy the circuit board for the communication card. Three of them shorted out somehow via ground. Multiples have failed due to blowing the temperature limits. The funny thing is that the limiting factor here is the LCD, not the processor board in back. We can cool the stuff in back right down but radiant heat can be a pain in the rear. I just fought another strange grounding case. The thing worked well for a few weeks. Then it stopped communicating. Restarting it made it work again. The time delay before it locked up again kept getting shorter and shorter until now it only takes a few minutes. If we swap it for another unit, the problem goes away and then the new unit repeats the pattern. If we take the "failed" units to a more friendly environment, they will continue to work fine as if nothing ever happened. On Remote I/O networks, it appears that running a separate solid ground all the way through the power supply and back to the PLC ground cures the problem. On Ethernet, disconnecting the ground entirely seems to solve the problem and no amount of fooling around with various grounding schemes gives any headway. They are all 24VDC powered (no on-board AC). This is happening with 6" Panelview+ and 10" Panelview+, but the 6" units seem to be more tolerant of issues than the 10" ones. I've never had so many issues with operator interfaces before, including dozens of Panelview standard. Once we got into a protection scheme that worked, we also never have issues with panel PC's anymore either. It's only when we started introducing Panelview Plus that all kinds of strange failures started showing up. AB Technical support is clueless on most of these issues. So at this point I'm ready for a change to something more reliable.

[finfin 0]

YARRR! (in honor of National Talk Like a Pirate Day) Thanks for the information. I'm going to print it out and send it around the office so we can watch out for for this type of scurvy dog problem. We recently had some problems with trend logging to the CF cards. It appears that if it loses connection to the card it "errors forever" until the card is reseated and the power is cycled. You also have to make sure it is really logging after that. It's not a killer issue yet but it does shiver our timbers.

[Taotaoba 0]

Perhaps you need to check your grounding. PV+ has a "strange" design that the 24VDC "-" terminal is inter-connected to the GND terminal. This may cause unexpected current passes through it if the grounding is not proper.