AB panelview plus 400 selection / uploading

[irah 0]

hi all i have 1 panelviewplus 400 model k4m5d and 5 nos k4m20d (former has only serial and latter serial and ethernet). if i replace the k4m5d with k4m20d, wil just copying the .mer runtime file work. I dont have the .apa file for editing. can we upload the program from these operator terminals for editing. If so how (uploading and editing the application). I use RSView Studio 4.00. Thanks in advance Irah

[finfin 0]

Part 1 may work... give it a try. Uploading... I don't think that will work. It seems that there is a way but you don't get the... tags? I'll look around and be back.

[finfin 0]

Here is part of a discussion about this: There is a way to unarchive MER file... To un-archive the MER file follow these easy steps: 1. Upload MER file from PanelView. 2. Double click on the project with the MER extension. RS View ME Station will start. 3. As long as RS View ME Station is running (even if an error is shown) it un-archives the project to: C:\Documents and Settings\<login username>\Local Settings\Temp\~MER.00 Replace <login username> with your login details. Note that “\Local Settings” is a hidden directory. The un-archived files are deleted when ME Station is no longer running. That worked like a champ I had to create a new project in RSView Studio with the same name as the .MER. This is the only way that I was able to open the project in RSView Studio. I deleted all the contents of the new project and replaced them with the contents of the temporary folder noted in your steps. The one thing that it didn't restore was the RSLinx Enterprise path. I guess that is not that big of deal as long as you don't replace the comms when you download. It is pretty simple to re-create it though. One of our Engineers was at the Automation Fair a couple of weeks ago and a Rockwell guy said that this was not possible. They are supposed to add this feature into the next release of RSView. Here is a little more detailed description of the process to convert a .mer file to a .apa. Create a new application in RSView Studio with the name that you want to restore your .mer application to, for this example let us use the name “Restored App”. The new application is stored at: “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\RSView Enterprise\ME\HMI projects\Restored App\” Upload the .mer file from the panelview plus using the file transfer utility provided with RSView Studio. Run the uploaded .mer application on your PC. You will get a warning most likely that you current license will only work for two hours, then you will get a warning stating that you have too many screens to run on your current license. These warnings are fine this will still work. Anyways, once it has been opened it extracts all the files from the .mer file into the following directory: “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp\~MER.00\” Select all the files within the “~MER.00” directory and copy them into the “Restored App” directory overwriting all the files in the “Restored App” directory. Now go and open the RSView Studio and select Restored App. Like I mentioned before you will certainly lose the alarm messages, but you can open the M_Alarms directory and read the MachineAlarms.mal file in notepad.

[kaiser_will 65]

I posted a document in the Allen-Bradley tutorials on how to convert an uploaded PanelViewPlus MER file back into a full APA application file. I do not remember the author of this document, but I do believe someone pointed me to it and that it was an Allen-Bradley document. I have not tried this procedure (yet). Best of luck and keep us posted on the success or issues.

[irah 0]

Thank You...i'l give it a try..i'm on leave for 2 days so it'l take time...thanx

[BobLfoot 302]

This process will not restore macros and scripts, but just the screens. If the unit uses scripts to trigger actions you'll need the original apa. At least with Version 4, now version 5 or 5.1 might be a different story if it comes out with all the promised bells and whistles.

[jstolaruk 9]

If you have tech support and can upgrade to ver 5.0, opening/converting/restoring a .mer file is now a feature of the Application Manager. Edited 5 Nov 2008 by jstolaruk

[irah 0]

ok so it isnt working completely..n no i dont think i can upgrade to version 5..what a mess..i have to get hold of .apa file somehow..thank you all..keep up the good work..does anyone know a place where i can post newbie hydraulic questions? rexroth amp card tuning and related..thanks