Student Question:
I’m not sure I can connect to my PanelView Plus 600 at work to edit its program using Ethernet because I’m not an admin on my PC and can’t change my Ethernet settings from DHCP.
Can I use USB or go through my CompactLogix’s USB port to program and edit my PVPlus program?
Shawn’s Answer:
Good morning,
To start, please know you can connect to any PanelView Plus HMI over Serial, Ethernet, or both Serial and Ethernet depending on which ports your model has.
Most of the original PanelView Plus models as well as PanelView Plus 6 models have both Serial and Ethernet,while the PanelView Plus 7 only has Ethernet.
The PanelView Plus 6 and 7 also include the aility to upload and download to them via USB. For more information about that, check out the below Rockwell tech note:
However, these connections are for using the “Transfer Utility” to either upload or download .MER runtime files as discussed and demonstrated in the course.
That said, you can’t edit the PanelView Plus online like you can a PLC or PAC, and I don’t know of a way to upload or download to the PanelView Plus through the USB Port on a CompactLogix, but I’ve also never tried this (however I’m not too confident it would work…)
As far as your Ethernet connection, as long as the DHCP server your connected to puts you one the same subnet at the PVPlus, or puts you on a subnet with a router connecting your network to the PVPlus’s network, then you should be able to connect.
But as shown in the course, you may have to add the PVPlus manually to the communications tab in ViewStudio if it does not appear automatically.
As far as serial goes, it’s often not an option because most developers do not add the serial driver to the Target/Runtime tab, so it typically isn’t enabled on the PVPlus and therefore can’t be used.
If it is enabled, or if you reset the PVPlus comms to default to enable it, you’ll find it’s rather slow, so much so that I avoid using serial and instead use removable storage like a USB Flash drive or CompactFlash/SD card.
You can even write auto run scripts to copy the files when you insert your removable memory, perfect for cases when you’re locked out of the Configuration Menu. For more on that, check out the below article:
How To Automatically Run A USB Flash Drive Script On The PanelView Plus
Hope this helps!
Note: All students who purchase my courses are encouraged to ask questions related to the content covered in those courses. Digital customers may ask questions in the related lesson’s discussion area on the site they purchased the course from (i.e. Vimeo.com, etc) For DVD customers who register, I’ll soon be opening a new Q & A section on TheAutomationSchool.com.
Until next time, Peace ✌️
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Shawn M Tierney
Technology Enthusiast & Content Creator
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Shawn, Great article. If Rockwell’s BootP DHCP server is installed on the PC it can be used to set the the PC’s IP address to the same subnet as the PanelView Plus.
Good Morning Ross,
Very good point!
I’ve actually set my PC WiFi IP by accident that way 🙂
Now I always double check the MAC address first!
Thanks,
Shawn Tierney
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