Panelview 550 Questions

[Bering C Sparky 7]

Hello, Total Newbee here, I am onboard a fishing trawler in the Bering Sea and am having trouble getting a panelview 550 that crashed and burned back up and running. I am pretty much self taught on what I know about Plc and Automation, the only training I have been able to recieve so far is when something on the ship stops working they tell me to go and fix it. ( trial by fire ) so please bare with me through my explanations. We have several differerant Plc systems onboard, the one the panelview in question is connected to is Allen Bradley PLC5 on a DH+ network. However even when this Panelview was functioning I was not able to see it on the DH+ nework that is routed to my shop. ( I could see everything else connected to the Plc : another panelview 1000, the Pc for the SCADA, and a couple of groups of remote I/O. only the panelview 550 in question was not seen, but it did operate and the techs in that area of the factory used it to change setting to related equipment. I have a replacement for the panelview its a PV 550 cat # 2711-B5A1 ser F rev H frn 3.40. the only backup of the panelview application that was being used is from back in 1999. Again you could not see this panel view on the network so no backups were being made of the file. ( all other relevant programs are curent on backups ) My problem is I cannot get this application ( panel builder ) loaded onto the panelview and I cannot get the panelview to communicate with the plc. I have done lots of reading on the subject and have tried endless times and methods to connect and load this with no results. The printer port (rs232) turned off and I am using a straight through cable. If possible could somone please walk me step by step through this. Thank you in advance and I look forward to any replys.

[OkiePC 14]

Welcome! You came to the right place. Your part number indicates a PanelView 550 Monochrome, Remote I/O Communication & RS-232 Printer Port. A DH+ PV550 would be a 2711-B5A8 This RIO unit and cabling looks like DH+ but it isn't, and there's not a way to switch your panelview between the two types of comms except fork over the cash for a different unit. Do you still have the old dead one? Compare part numbers and make sure you got the same thing that croaked. Can up show us the .pva (or .pba Panelbuilder32) file you are trying to transfer? Do you have access to a laptop with a PCMCIA slot and an ATA type Memory card or CF card adapter? Its much simpler to transfer apps to any Panelview standard using a memory card. This works with all of them except the Micros which don't have the slot, so there are no driver hassles if you have a useable memory card and a way to write to it from a PC. If you can post the .pva or .pba file (zip it, and attach to a post) we can check that the part number configured in the application matches your replacement hardware. Also, with the PLC-5 it might just be possible to change a couple settings and allow passthrough access between channels to get RSLinx to "see" that PV550 when you're all done. If it's on RIO as per your posted part number, then it may be risky to perform a passthrough download, but if you are okay with shutting down the PLC-5 temporarily, it is actually possible to download via RIO block transfer passthrough, and it goes much faster when the PLC is in program mode. I heard one story of a guy who wiped the PLC5 program in a machine that was running by performing the passthrough download to a RIO PV550, but I have done it a half dozen times with no issues at all...still be prepared to deal with the consequences, and if that is not an option, then get ahold of a memory card and life will be much much easier! Again, if you post that PV app here, we can look and tell you a lot of things about your tags (whether it matters to make current backups, what happens to settings following a power cycle, etc). Edited 26 Feb 2011 by OkiePC

[Bering C Sparky 7]

Hello OkiePC, I replied to your post a little while ago but never seen it appear on the forum. ( will have to get used to this sight) Any how, the PV that crashed and burned was a PV550 # 2711-B5A1 ser E rev A frn 2.01 I am attaching the Panel Builder program that i found for this PV. ( keep in mind that this one is from 1999 ) I know that it has been updated since them because when I Wrote in a temperary fix to the main PV 1000 in a diffeant area of the factory so the tech could walk over ther and make the changes need for batching I had to change / adjust tags in the application so it would work with the current program in PLC5. Hopefully this Panel builder application will give you enough info to see how this was configured before. ( hopefully this old one is the same as current configuration ) As i said before I am pretty green to the PLC / Automation world and this PLC5 is the oldest thing i have had to work with so far. kind of confusing how everthing else is on DH+ but not this panelview. I have never had to configue differant communications onto 1 network. All of the DH+ networks I have worked with in the past were a daisy chained loop with one resitor at the end. this thing seems to be a group of multipal channels that parallel off from the plc. I will bring my camera down and post a pic when i get a chance. ( need to find some time to read up on this PLC5 ) Thanks again for the reply and I look forward to any advise you have to offer. mix2.PBA

[Ken Roach 194]

On the RIO network, this PanelView will show up both as a "Full Rack" of data in the Input and Output data files of the PLC-5, and also will exchange data with the PLC-5 using "Block Transfers" This PV550 is set up as "Rack 14", so without it connected you should see a Rack Fault bit set true for Rack 14 in the PLC-5's Remote I/O Status (open the Processor Status file and scroll over to the Rack tab). The Input and Output addresses for the PanelView would be I:140/0 - 17 O:140/0 - 17 I:141/0 - 17 O:141/0 - 17 I:142/0 - 17 O:142/0 - 17 I:143/0 - 17 O:143/0 - 17 I:144/0 - 17 O:144/0 - 17 I:145/0 - 17 O:145/0 - 17 I:146/0 - 17 O:146/0 - 17 I:147/0 - 17 O:147/0 - 17 In the PLC-5, a "Rack" of I/O memory is 8 words long. And remember that Bits are numbered in Base 8 in the I/O table only... the PLC-5 inherited this from the PLC-2 in the Seventies. Your PanelBuilder32 application doesn't show the discrete I:14x and O:14x data files being used, though. Instead it shows what the developer noted as the target Integer (Nxx:yy) data files for the Block Transfer instructions. Search your PLC-5 program for a Block Transfer Read whose target is "Rack 14, Group 0, Slot 0" and address is N36:0, length 64. There will be another one, a Block Transfer Write whose target is "Rack 14, Group 0, Slot 0" and address is N38:70, length 10. All that exercise will do, though, is familiarize you with the memory areas used by this PanelView. The project shows the Auxiliary Port being used for "Download", not as a printer port. You should be able to download the project using that port and a straight-through serial cable (not a 1747-CP3 or 1756-CP3... those are Null Modem type cables). You can try a serial download using the built-in DF1 driver in PanelBuilder32, or you can create and configure a DF1 driver in RSLinx Classic then direct PanelBuilder to use RSLinx. If you have a network connection to the PLC-5 (DH+ or Ethernet or ControlNet) you might be able to use Pass-Through Download... that's a little trickier to configure. Edited 26 Feb 2011 by Ken Roach

[OkiePC 14]

I agree with Ken about doing everything you can to document the set up (search for the BTR/BTW assigned to that rack since you don't have a 100% known current backup file. Then you should be able to repeat your past work and download it serially, or with a memory card. The baud rate configured in the pba file is 9600.

[OkiePC 14]

I agree with Ken about doing everything you can to document the set up (search for the BTR/BTW assigned to that rack) since you don't have a 100% known current backup file. Then you can compare those tags to the tag editor contents in PB32, copy and paste comments if necessary and so forth. Often the original programmer only comments the registers in use, but when you have block transfers it is good to mark them all with a comment. I prefix all my comments with "To HMI " and "From HMI " for this type of set up, followed by "Spare" for those not yet used. Then they stand out in an organized fashion when you look at the database from any list format (like in RSLogix or exported to .csv) Then you should be able to repeat your past work and download it serially, or with a memory card. The baud rate configured in the pba file is 9600. Your replacement will likely have much newer firmware, so you may have to change that in Panelbuilder32. In the left pane, find Applications, Terminal Setup and double click it. Toward the bottom right of the pop-up dialog box there is a button "Catalog and Revision Numbers..." click that button and match the major firmware level to your new hardware. Edited 1 Mar 2011 by OkiePC

[Bering C Sparky 7]

Thanks for all the great advise. I got the program loaded in the PV, factory is just now shutting down so after they get cleaned up I will try and install the PV and see how it goes. Again thanks for the help.

[Bering C Sparky 7]

PV is installed and working great. Thanks again for the info.