Multiple PV800 on a single CompactLogix

Hey there,

I'm working on a project that will contain multiple (up to 12) Panelview 800 HMIs and one 1769-L18ERM-BB1B controller. Based on the controller specifications found in the 1769-td005 pdf I think that this setup might work.
The L18ERM supports up to 256 CIP connections, which should be plenty enough assuming that each HMI uses one CIP-Connection to connect to the controller. The other limit that I stumbled across was the amount of supported Ethernet/IP nodes, I'm assuming that these are ethernet nodes that are configured in the IO-Manager, i.e. some AENTs or something like that.

As I'm sitting here, waiting for the hardware to arrive, my confidence that this setup will work vanishes...
Maybe one of you guys can tell me if I missed something when I was going through the manuals or can confirm my choice.

Thanks in advance!

Welcome to the Forum !

You may be the first person ever to build a control system using those components in that configuration, since the PV800 was designed to be a "one terminal, one controller" machine HMI used with MicroLogix and Micro 800 controllers.

You are correct about the way that EtherNet/IP "nodes" are counted in the CompactLogix; anything that goes in the I/O tree is an EtherNet/IP node.

I'm not crazy about using a large number of HMI devices on a single very small controller because you're going to put a heavy load on its communication task. Hopefully your HMI application is not large and does not have to be fast.

In addition, the Micro 800 was not built to work with CompactLogix. It was recently upgraded so it could work with the 1769-L16 and -L18 controllers only.

You should probably be OK on CIP connections. An HMI device can use more than one connection... the PanelView Plus can use up to five. The rule of thumb is that basic tag read/writes use one connection (and can add more if necessary), and trends use another, and alarms use another, and Global Tags use another. I don't know how many CIP connections a PanelView 800 will use with a CompactLogix.

There's a video on how to configure the PanelView 800 terminal with CompactLogix L1 controllers:

http://www.rockwellautomation.com/g...nnected-components/tools/workbench.page?#tab5

Just in case you don't know already, you can only configure a maximum of 200 tags in each PV800, when you're using it with a compact logix

Thank you both for your prompt answers.

Being the first to do something may be quite nice occasionally, but here it leaves me a little uncomfortable. I will definitely keep you updated on how things went when the hardware arrived.

I planned on using the current screen number to multiplex the actual values and commands per screen. This should keep the tag-count low. Also there will be not much interaction with the operator, the whole purpose is mainly showing current productivity data and maybe some alarming. As it is not possible to connect the PV800 to a ControlLogix device the L18 will only act as a data consolidation point.
If I won't get it running I'll be left with some nice small HMIs for upcoming L1 projects (thinking of lemonade right now, but why...)

Just a quick update, everything worked out fine in the end. Each PV800 is using up one CIP connection on a L18-ERM-B1BB. Creating the applications in CCW wasn't that hard, and if the would provide a way to indirectly address plc tags it would have been even easier. I'm l leaving all the navigation to the PLC, providing just a remote screen number and values for that particular screen for the PV800s. It's responsive enough to keep the operators calm.

I quite like the ability to change the display orientation to portrait as you are left with less empty space on the screen. The pop up keyboards on the 4" display are pretty small, fortunately most of the operators on these stations have good eyes and small fingertips ;P
The numeric input keyboard is decent, editing text fields (which I don't use) would be frustrating.

Thanks again for your help, I really appreciated it.