Panel view modifications

I need to make some modifications to a Panelview... I hope you will help me along in this...I am not too familiar with this and if I mis-speak I hope you will educate me... thanks

I uploaded the "program" from the panelview and saved it, and a backup copy. I then followed the proceedure to get the .mer file into factory talk view studio ME Release number 5.00 build number 55. I believe that was sucessful because I can now view the "screens" of the project.

It is my understanding that I have already "lost" some things like alarms(?). I am not sure what that means.

1.What have I lost? Is it the actual text that appears when an alarm is triggered? How do I replace it?

2. If I did nothing but save this now, and reinstalled it in the panelview, would I be able in the future to upload it and modify it, without going through the proceedure I had to go through to get it in there this time, and without losing anything?

I have more questions, but I don't want to make the post too long. thanks in advance

sounds like you have a panelview plus. Under the Alarms are they all listed? Check all the tabs on alarms, it should download everything. If your communications on your Factory talk view is setup right you should be able to "test application" on your pc.

I do not have the PLC connected to the PC and that seems to cause a whole bunch of errors. If there is a way to run this where it would just simulate the existance of the PLC , I'd be very interested in knowing that. It does a lot of squawking about drivers failing to autoconfig COM1.


Also re: your question are the alarms all listed? I don't know what they should be... this is an inhereted project from an OEM that went bust.

I see an "alarm setup " box with several tabs that looks to me to be empty of information

You may be faced with re-creating parts, at least the alarms, of the original project. The proper storage place for the source of a project is the .apa file which is created by using 'tools' - 'application manager' - 'backup application'. Do not depend on being able to re-upload from the Panelview.

realolman said:

I need to make some modifications to a Panelview... I hope you will help me along in this...I am not too familiar with this and if I mis-speak I hope you will educate me... thanks

I uploaded the "program" from the panelview and saved it, and a backup copy. I then followed the proceedure to get the .mer file into factory talk view studio ME Release number 5.00 build number 55. I believe that was sucessful because I can now view the "screens" of the project.

It is my understanding that I have already "lost" some things like alarms(?). I am not sure what that means.

1.What have I lost? Is it the actual text that appears when an alarm is triggered? How do I replace it?

2. If I did nothing but save this now, and reinstalled it in the panelview, would I be able in the future to upload it and modify it, without going through the proceedure I had to go through to get it in there this time, and without losing anything?

I have more questions, but I don't want to make the post too long. thanks in advance

Click to expand...

you should first contact whoever last worked on or designed the program in the panelview. ask them for the apa file.

PLC Emulators are avaiable to act like the PLC in your system, but they are a challenge too. Nothing is ever as easy as it ought to be. Basically, you get the emulator installed, then get the PLC app and change it from whatever CPU it was on, to the emulator type ("Emulator" is a type of PLC) and then download to the emulator. Now you can point the MMI app to the emulator and in theory, you test the system offline. I have never been happy with this process and even though I bought the emulator, I don't use it. There is also SoftLogix software, that turns you PC into the PLC, if that possibility is desirable.

In my experience, it is less trouble to put your development PC onto the production network and then use the test function in Studio to evaluate the MMI operation. Of course, if you have a spare PLC, you can set the whole thing up in an offline situation and this ultimately leads to the best solution. Also the best eduation for you because you can safely learn from your mistakes.

Best Regards,

Bob A.

bernie_carlton said:

You may be faced with re-creating parts, at least the alarms, of the original project. The proper storage place for the source of a project is the .apa file which is created by using 'tools' - 'application manager' - 'backup application'. Do not depend on being able to re-upload from the Panelview.

Click to expand...

When you talk about the alarms... what exactly are you talking about? ... the text of the alarm messages, or something more?

Can you tell us the firmware of the Panelview from which you uploaded the application?

Also, it is possible that, along with your alarms, you may have lost any users and security settings.

It is true with the PV+ that you don't want to get stuck depending on an upload for your backups, but if you update the firmware in the PV+ to a version which supports your 5.00 version of FTViewME, then you will retain the option to at least upload the full project in the future, although I still think it's possible to blow up the security settings if you upload to a machine with a different facotry talk directory config.

As far as the alarms, if you have a working system you can study, just get online with it's PLC, and you can probably figure out what addresses are being used for HMI alarms.

Uploading from an older version than 5.00 panelview will not get any of the alarms, so you gotta rebuild that from other bits and pieces.

If you can contact the original programmer and obtain an archive (.apa) file from them, you can avoid all that hassle.

I dont think it's gonna happen

I don't think I'm gonna be able to obtain any .apa files or anything else from the OEM.... they just ain't anymore.

I don't know the firmware of the PV+ , but something else I have noticed.... There are logins and passwords that I can't find in this project either....


Something I would like to know.... If I ended up screwing this whole deal up, am I going to be able to download what I uploaded ( the .mer file ) and restore things to how they were.... or is that questionable as well?

Yes, you can hang onto that old mer file and it should be a solid method of restoring the thing to its original state. In that case, then don't update the PV+ firmware, as it may not work with newer firmware.

Depending on the size of the .mer, the PV+ may be able to hold it as well as your new one, and you can (from the config screen) choose which one to load and run.

I would start by just trying to nail down the alarms and users/passwords. Once you get that all sorted out, then you can safely move on to make the other changes you need.