Obsolete ahead of schedule

I ordered a replacement for a failed PV300 keypad with DeviceNet comm and got the bad news from our distributor that they were no longer available. I didn't expect this until 2013.
We have a about a dozen of these little guys around the plant... time to start scheming

Yeah we just ran into the same problem. I didn't think they would be obsolete until the end of the year. We're moving to the Red Lion G304K's. They are much nicer than the 300Micro's and about the same price. Unfortunately the new version (G304K2) isn't quite ready to be released (I've been told end of August). The older version is pretty hard to come by, so if you need one right now you may need to look at something else.

All panelview standards are silver 'round Christmas last ordered new. If it's a PV300 Micro, don't wait, just stock the spare to wait and the new part number. Never replace a PV300 Micro with anything but a G304K. They are almost the same cutout opening, but like switching from pong to playstation.

Why is it that the release dates get delayed, but the obsolescence dates come early?
I have been really eyeing up the Red Lions to transition to. The big downside of the PV+'s is the boot time... we live by lock-out at our plant. That boot up seems to take forever. I've heard the Red Lions are comparable to the standards for boot time.

It could be that some people buy up the stock (when they here a part is silver series) so that they have spares and Rockwell set there end of stock date by the normal demand for the particular product.

1MoCast said:

I've heard the Red Lions are comparable to the standards for boot time.

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Not even close.

7-9 seconds after you apply power, the G304K is fully up and running, controlling your machine, talking to the devices, displaying live data, etc. There may be a few seconds delay getting logging going...not sure...

The G310s and G306s I have used are fully functional 7 seconds after applying power, no matter how big or small the image in my experience.

You can install firmware and an application in a G3 in about the time it takes for a PV+ to boot. Once the unit is loaded with firmware and the application, further changes (thanks to incremental downloading over ethernet or USB) to the program can be done while the operator turns his head to look at the wall clock...(1 to 5 seconds typical)...

Red Lion HMI boot time is the most under advertised feature for anyone who ever locks out HMI power and depends on the HMI to begin production. In our case, we earn an extra $11 per minute of uptime on one of them just by turning on the power (2 to 3 times per day) and having a G3 instead of the PV+ it replaced. That's one little machine paying us $30-50 per day to switch HMI brands...

I should correct myself, your PV300 with DeviceNet would require a full size G3 with a devicenet adapter or a different communication method if possible.

alan_505 said:

It could be that some people buy up the stock (when they here a part is silver series) so that they have spares and Rockwell set there end of stock date by the normal demand for the particular product.

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I was told by a regional guy that they were including some expected hording in their calculations but that it was hard to predict. Most of them said don't be surprised if some models go away by Thanksgiving and they did specifically ask us if we had any Devicenet Panelviews; thankfully we don't.

We used to throw away a PV300 Micro every 30-90 days. I think they are unreliable and are going to die off much faster than RA predicted.

I think that meeting was around March or April of this year.