Understand Panel view

Hello everyone. I am a good industrial electrician who gets about RSLogix fairly well while diagnosing problems and doing minor additional programming tasks, but not a real programmer. I currently have a very old machine that seam welds a stainless steel flexible tubing. Picture exhaust flex pipe or a culvert pipe . I uses 2 racks of SLC5/04 to control two different drives and includes a special timer card to control an inverter that powers and adjusts the weld transformer. The card is made by the welding inverter supply and in RSlogix only comes up as "other"The program has 872 rungs with no descriptions, and the company that make this machine only made on and they went out of biz 20 yrs ago. There is a panelview 2711-t10c8 that the operator sets the speeds and weld amperage. A few days ago, the machine started welding at full current no matter how low he set it. The inverter that sets the current can be adjusted with a separate hand held unit made by the inverter supplier, and it adjusts correctly when I use it.
Where I am at a total loss is when it comes to knowing how to "see" the communication between the panelview and the Plc. As I said, the program has almost 900 rungs with no descriptions and is mostly moves, copies, less, more, scaling, timers,etc, so it is hard to find and watch what is going on. I would like to see if the panelview is sending the the proper information and if it is changing the information as the operator changes values. I have never attempted this, don't know where to look (in RSlogix?) or if it is even possible. The only connection on this panelview is DH+ to the Plc and no other rs232 or anything that looks like I could plug into. Can anyone help a noob?
Thanks

is there any manuals, cad drawings, trouble shooting information?

if not, you will need to document the program while it is in manual mode
by turning on/off inputs 1 at a time and very carefully doing the same for the outputs.

the panelview most likely will be writing to internal bits.

regards,
james

Unfortunately, no, there are no drawings, schematics, even notes.
The input to adjust weld current comes from the panelview thru the dh+ and the outputs directly to the inverter come from an output card made by the weld company and only shows as "other" in RSlogix and I can't see any addresses for it. Also, the outputs are analog, and I have no info as to what they are, as I can't even find them in RSlogix. I'm sure some of the 900 rungs relate to it, but it's like a needle in a haystack.
Is there a way for me to see or isolate WHICH bits are triggered by the panelview? Is there something about how the bits show in RSlogix that would point them out?

Is the inverter that you can manually control the same as the inverter supply that gets its current setpoint from the PanelView? Does it really get the setpoint directly from the Panelview or is possibly an analog output from the SLC giving the inverter its setpoint?

I the panel view sends the settings to the slc, then there is an analog output card (weld company calls it a timer card) that send the output to the inverter. I have a handheld device that allows we to tap in after that card and set parameters such as weld current, and if it turn down my "max current" to the current I want, it works fine. So the problem is somewhere within panelview,slc or their timer card, but unable to "see" the inputs.

It sounds like you should check the value coming out of that analog card. Do you know if its 4-20ma, or 0-10VDC or something else? You might have to go online with the SLC to see if its sending the analog card the correct value.

Thunderbike said:

I would like to see if the panelview is sending the the proper information and if it is changing the information as the operator changes values. I have never attempted this, don't know where to look (in RSlogix?) or if it is even possible. The only connection on this panelview is DH+ to the Plc and no other rs232 or anything that looks like I could plug into. Can anyone help a noob?
Thanks

Click to expand...

To really see where the panelview buttons are sending the information would require opening the panelview file in Studio and poking around the various buttons and numeric inputs. Given the machine's age, that might not be fun.

Seeing that you only have Logix, a crude method would be opening the data tables and changing a value on the HMI to see what address changes to your entered value. Not efficient, but might be the only option without comments or access to the HMI file.

If the Panelview lost communications to the PLC I would think you'd get an error on the screen,

In regards to your actual problem, jkerekes reply is a great start. That will test the card's function (you said the company made the card - any model info on it anywhere?). If the card is outputting what the PLC is telling it to but the drive is not responding you can narrow it down to wiring or the drive itself.

Do you have the software for your Standard PanelView ( PanelBuilder32)? With that you can see where (data files in the PLC) the panelview is writing to, by viewing the PV's tags.

On the Panelview config screen, it should show if comms to the SLC is connected or not.

If you do not have the Panel Builder software, then you will need to guess the address. The input from the panelview to the SLC will most likely be an integer, but could be a floating point. Look at the N or F data files to see if the weld current setpoint on the panleview is showing up in the file. N7 and F8 are the default data files. If you find the same number, change it on the panelview to see it changes in the SLC to confirm you have the correct address.

As for the output, though the card is just listed as other, it still has to be addressed by its slot location. Say if it is in slot 6, then the output would be at O:6. Look for an output instruction block (such as SCP) with an output address that matches the slot location.