PanelViewPlus Firmware Upgrade from 3.00

I'm having trouble finding the information I need to upgrade the firmware on a PanelViewPlus1000 firmware version 3.00.05.65 to firmware version 3.20.00. I've used the firmware upgrade utility before with no problems but it was from version 3.1 to 3.2.

I searched the Allen-Bradley online knowledgebase and I read something about some of the 3.00 versions are running on an older Operating System and the OS needs to be upgraded first. Has anyone experienced this or know where I might look to accomplish this upgrade?

I already have the FUPs downloaded for versions 3.1 and 3.2 and I am searching these directories with the upgrade utility but it keeps coming up as "None found".

I would appreciate any help you can offer. Thanks.

PV+ firmware 3.0 ran on Windows CE 3.0
PV+ firmware 3.1 and 3.2 runs on Windows CE 4.1, aka CE.NET.

Because A-B has to pay a license fee to Microsoft for the firmware upgrade, it's a chargeable item. Your A-B dealer can look up the part number and price.

In Feb. 2004 during the 3.10 launch, there was a huge flurry of upgrades (pretty much every unit out there !) and every user was invited to make a one-time no-charge order of as many firmware kits as they needed.

Get in touch with your A-B dealer; most still have a number of unused 3.0 -> 3.10 kits (I have a bunch around here somewhere), after which you can apply the downloadable 3.20 upgrade using the FUW utility.

As an follow-on suggestion to Ken's info, how about getting the distributor to do the job? I did exactly the same upgrade lately recently and it took longer than I expected.

The key mistake I kept making was not deleting ALL of the stored applications off the PV before attempting the downloads. The early version of WInCE only handled a limited amount of memory (about 32MB I think) and the way it was allocated meant that there was not enough memory to do both the upgrade and keep all the applications that I had stored there. Once I got that right it was mainly just a case of following instructions, but suggest that trying to do it under time pressure in the field may not be a smart idea.

However I have to say the upgrade to WinCE 4.1 and PV3.2 seems to have improved the speed a little and fixed a couple of silly little bugs as well...well worth doing. I know lots of folk ran into issues with Ver 3.0 and 3.1, but at 3.2 I have yet to run into any serious problems.

Thanks Ken and Phillip,

I just got off the phone with my distributor and he can't believe I have a terminal with 3.0; he thought that problem was well behind them and that AB didn't have anymore 3.0 terminals hanging around. I told him I just picked up the PanelView from them last week!

Anyway, to make a long story short, he is getting the upgrade for me at no charge. I like the idea of the distributor performing the upgrade but I'll probably just do it myself.

Thanks for your help.