GT6Steve

Viewing PV 1000's on my network?

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Greetings, I have a network in my facility with a dozen or so redundant ControlLogix PLC's, switches and Panelviews.  I want to back up and remotely access my Panelviews as I do the PLC's via the Engineering workstation.  Do I need to add RSView to the workstation to facilitate this?  I used it many years ago but don't recall how it was setup?  What should I buy?

Thanx in advance  Steve in Las Vegas

 

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PanelView HMIs run a .MER file that is compiled from a project .APA file.  Having the source project .APA file is the safest backup method as you can render a .MER file anytime or make changes to the application (and deal with FTViewME version changes).

If you want to run a PanelView application (i.e., FTViewME running on a PC), yes, your PC will need to have licensed FTViewME and RSLinx on it.

You can host a FTViewME application on your development PC, but it will only run in this manner for a short time (2 hours?).  Select APPLICATION from the system tray, select TEST APPLICATION (which spawns a pop-up).

You will want to use the same version or newer that the PView HMIs were created with; FTView Ver. 9 is latest.

Do you have the full .APA application project files for all of your PView HMI terminals?  Many OEMs often do not provide the .APA files, but may if you ask (nicely).

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Please provide the complete catalog number of your PV.

Standard PV's   use "PanelBuilder 32" to program them.

Newer PV Plus units use  Factory Talk as mentioned by Kaiser_will  above.

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2711P-T10C4A8 is fairly representative of our HMI's.  All hardware and software is roughly seven years old with 6 years in production.  I recall PanelBulder32 but wasn't aware is was a site version.  Factory Talk has replaced RSView I think...Thanx

 

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I have backups of all the HMI's on memory cards, so they are probably .APA files?

 

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FactoryTalk View Studio ME is what you will need to program PanelView Plus HMIs. Assuming they are all connected to a plant network along with your engineering workstation, then you will be able to access them. Studio is the software to view and modify the program. To simply back things up, you'll be using a couple of different utilities that are installed with Studio.

Application Manager let's you backup and restore programming projects (i.e. create .APA archives and unarchive them as projects that Studio can open). It also let's you decompile .MER runtime files, though how well this works is dependent on what version of Studio was used to create the runtime.

Transfer Utility is what you use to transfer the .MER runtime files to and from a PanelView Plus.

RS View was replaced by FactoryTalk View Studio SE. This is the AB SCADA software. ME and SE are very similar, but are not interchangeable.

If you have backups of the project files, they are most likely .APA files, though I've known programmers to treat the .MER files as the backups. You'll just have to see.

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