PanelView Component what do you think?

I just did my first job with a PVC. I admit this was a job that I got parts dropped by the shop this morning so it hasn't been real fun time.
I was not impresses with the GUI for programming. Probably to much of an old PB32 guy. I am a occational standard PV user. So the basic object palette was OK. I do a lot of my tags and multi state items in excel. I found this unit didn't like to have things imported from an outside source. It crashed several times causing me to open Internt Explorer up again and agian. I was lucky enought to have to reboot 2 times. The boot up times makes me think Cisco built this thing. 1 min. 10 sec. from power up to runtime.

Ok I thought I found a cool feature on this but then guess I was wrong. I have the serial cable PM02 connected to the 2nd port of a MLX 1200 I started tried to cycle power by removing the 24 COM from the PLC but the screen still runs. Cool it must be getting all of its power from the serial cable kind of like a ENI. I then removed the +24 VDC from the PLC and the screen dies. So it has to be passing the GRN throught the serial cable. I don't like that. I can't really put my finger on it but I don't get the warm and fuzzy feeling from this system.

What have you all seen from these things a I just being to picky?

I have found that most problems I have had with these units were self inflicted. Using mozilla 3.0 instead of 2.0 (I think it's compatable with 3.0 now), not having the drivers installed, trying to set up communications on the wrong port, not having grounds installed, basicly not reading the instructions that were plainly spelled out. I agree it boots painfully slow, even after upgrading the firmware. Graphics are limited, VERY limited. Back light is not replaceable. Software on the first unit seemed very buggy, seems to be corrected by making sure mozilla was selected as the primary web browser in windows. On the plus side I love the trend graph and the alarms banner seems easier to set up than the standard panelview. Cheaper price is always a plus, $1800 for a 10" unit as opposed to almost $5000 for a panelview standard terminal. I guess it true, you get what you pay for. Just my 2 cents.

I'm looking forward to the new Windows-based PV Component editor coming in late 2010 to go with the new Component Workbench and the MicroLogix 800 series.

The PV Components editor is lightweight and free, but for me the penalty in development time isn't worth it because I don't crank out dozens of machines. With a native Windows editor instead of a giant box of Java components the editor should be far, far faster.

For what I do, the next hardware generation (faster CPU, new Windows CE 6 operating system) of PV+ will be my favored platform. If they give me multiple datalogs and a decent CSV file object I'll be thrilled.

I have done about 5 PVC jobs now from the c300 up through c1000. I have to say I found it really easy to learn. Yes they are slow to upload. I have a multistate with about 150 states and it takes foooorevvvver to load. The cost is most excelent though. If you dont need the higher functionality of the PV or the PV+ I would have to say the c is the way to go. Cant wait to see the new editor.

Ken Roach said:

I'm looking forward to the new Windows-based PV Component editor coming in late 2010 to go with the new Component Workbench and the MicroLogix 800 series.

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STOP TEASING US. You give us just enough to get our attention and then ..............

Because I don't crank out dozens of OEM machine I need to be as effective as I can. I did get my (2) 50 point multistate indicators and selectors to copy ad paste into excel. Tag database as well. It made a looong taste a little bit quicker.