Setting the target address in FactoryTalk when using DHCP

Hello All,

I work for an OEM and, as most posts on this subject suggest, we prefer to use static ip addresses on machine's networks. That said, we have a customer with a machine currently running this way wanting to change over to DHCP. I have been given the new ip address. Now, I am fairly new to FactoryTalk and, typically, have only selected discovered devices to use after I set the addresses statically. Here I mainly want to verify and seek advice on the steps to manually set the target, and that I can do this off line to create a runtime file?

Here is what I believe the steps would be in FactoryTalk. Assuming the project is open.
1. Navigate to the Communication setup
2. Click on the Runtime target tab.
3. Right click on the existing device/ip(PLC) and select properties. This opens a window with the ip address.
4. Change the ip to what the customer gave and select OK.
5. OK again to close com setup.
6. Create Runtime.

Please correct or offer any advice...Thank you.

Hello...Anyone???

The steps you described are exactly correct.

I think you can also change the IP address of a target shortcut right on the PanelView Plus terminal itself; I'll check on that when I have a terminal to look at tomorrow.

But if the customer is really using DHCP, that's only going to work until the next power cycle or network change.

Is the customer's DHCP server also working as a host name server ? I've never attempted to use hostnames with PV+, but I think it can be done.

Thanks Ken. I am uncertain as to the host name server. However, I did not think to ask either. Just to be sure, I will do so.

Sounds like your customer has a poor understaning of automation.

There are very few cases where DHCP is a good idea on an automated system. With Rockwell and maybe a few other key manufacturers DHCP With Persistance can be used to make it easier for lesser qualified people to replace complicated components.

I use it for drives but with DHCP persistance the same IP address from the DHCP pool is assigned to that specific port.

I specified networking you must understand this concept no matter what you do and that is Predictive identification. This means there must be a predictive way for components to be identified.

That means you must use static IP addresses or HostNames. There are no other options. You can plug a bunch of PC's into a switch that has DHCP enabled and it will give them all an address and thay can all connect to the internet like you do at home but this is unspecified networking.

These pc's will connect to the internet but they can't exchnage data over the LAN with each other until you give them all a unique hostname and join them all to a domain or a workgroup.

You can make View Applications work with DHCP and Hostnames but why? There is no value in doing it. It just makes things harder to maintain.

When Panelview 5000 comes out and the HMI application can be stored in the processor like drive programs are and it can push it to a new panelview by using automatic device replacement then it will have value. At the moment it has none.

Why do something where there are no positives and only negatives exist?

Continued..

I say this becasue if you have to replace a panelview you have to setup the hostname to make it works so it's just as easy to setup the static IP. They are in the same area?

If your customer wants easy replacement with no configuration then he needs a flash card in the panelview or if it's a pc he needs a removable cloned hard drive or an image of the PC for restore purposes.

DHCP gives you none of this.