C-more HMI's

Greetings everyone,

When the C-more line of HMI's came out a while back there was a lot of chatter on this site about them. I haven't heard much on here about the C-more line since.

I'm looking at the possibility of using one to try. I mainly do CLX with a PV+ on projects with good success. Has anyone used the C-more line yet with AB PLC's, specifically utilizing the supported Ethernet/IP driver?

TIA,

Greg

Can't help you with the AB drivers, but we have used the C-More line since they came out and have never had a problem. We use them on AutomationDirect plc's. We use the 12" Color, 6" color and 6" greyscale models.

We used the EZ-Touch brand before we switched to C-More and had horrible luck with them. I personally hated the touch cells on the EZ-Touch units and love the resistive screen on the C-More's.
I download the program using the ethernet port on the 12" model and it works great every time.

I like the C-More a lot. We use them with Allen Bradley PLCs on both DF1 and DH-485 protocols. They actually tend to bog down the DH-485 "data sidewale" less than a PAnelView Plus because you can do more with polling frequency.

I don't think the Ethernet on the C-More is compatible with the Ethernet on some of the A-B PLCs. Make sure you check out the specific configuration with AutomationDirect.com tech support before you buy.

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback. According to their website, the following is true for Ethernet/IP:

"C-more supports two types of communications using ODVA’s generic EtherNet/IP protocol:

1.) CIP Implicit I/O Messaging using the Generic Ethernet Module setup in ControlLogix and CompactLogix I/O configuration.
2.) CIP Explicit Messaging using the CIP Generic Message Type inside of ControlLogix and CompactLogix MSG instructions.

In both of these methods, the C-more panel is the Ethernet Server (Slave) and the CompactLogix or ControlLogix PLC is the Ethernet Client (Master). As of January 2006, only the ControlLogix Ethernet modules (1756-ENBT and 1756-ENET/B) and CompactLogix Controllers with Ethernet supported this type of messaging. PLC5 Ethernet, SLC 5/05, MicroLogix 1100 and 1761-NET-ENI are not supported by C-more’s EtherNet/IP. "

This gets me what I need, I'm using an L35E processor. It looks like Ethernet/IP support however is NOT standard on the base unit...There is no price adder for it though, I'll give them a call tomorrow to see how that works.

I downloaded the demo programming software, looks pretty good.

Does anyone have any experience using these HMI's on an Ethernet/IP network?

Thanks again for the feedback,

Greg

I have used a few of the C-more HMI's on ethernet to AB Compactlogix Processors and found them to work well. The only hassel is mapping data between the PLC tags and the screen tags as there is an offset of one. But the help section in the C-more software covers all the set up very well.
hugh

Hooey,

Thanks, I'm assuming the offset is because one guy starts at "zero" and the other starts at "one"?

I know the ability to browse directly to tags with the PV+ is one advantage versus using a c-more display. In my case, I don't have 1000's of tags, I will have a couple hundred. I'm also not an OEM, so everything I build is "one-off". If I have to manually enter 200 tags, it's not going to kill me.

Can anyone think of an advantage to using the PV+ over a c-more or other HMI to interface with AB controllers? I guess having local distributor support with AB can have its advantages.

TIA,

Greg

The advantage to the C-More is better value for your $ and easy to use software, plus good tech support.

The advantage with the PanelView Plus is that you can share the tag data base with RSLogix 5000 and not have to reenter or go through importing the tags. On a large project that can be a significant advantage.

Concur with zmanvortex. No problems. (Using with AD PLCs)

Andy