2 HMI's Possible For Logix5561?

We have a Controllogix based process line with a PC based HMI, held proprietary by the equipment manufacturer - Ethernet communication.

What I want to do is not change anything on their HMI, but add a second HMI, using the same Ethernet, for some added maintenance functions and calibration displays. Will the PLC (Logix5561) communicate with 2 HMI's at the same time? I know HMI's can communicate with & control more than one PLC at the same time.

If so, can both HMI's be on the same PC (theirs and an AdvancedHMI) using the same Ethernet connection. During normal production the AdvancedHMI will be shut off.

I've done this a number of times without problems. The one thing to note is that if there is any IO devices on the same Ethernet, the HMI response may be noticeable slower because the IO can use a lot of band width (depending on the RPI) and the HMI packets will have to work their way in between to IO packets.

Within the past few months I just did a control panel for a hydraulic unit. The main control panel was on a mezzanine with the hydraulic unit and had an 8" panel PC with an AdvancedHMI app. At the floor level the same app was run on a PC in order to be able to check the hydraulics without going on the mezzanine. That PC also had a proprietary HMI running simultaneously.

Last year I did a project on a machine that had a PC based proprietary HMI (that used RSLinx) and a DH+ based PanelView. I duplicated the PanelView program with AdvancedHMI and put it on the PC. This gave the option of operating the machine from the PC or the PanelView. If the PanelView ever went bad, they could continue to operate the machine from the PC. I demonstrated this by having the proprietary HMI running and starting up the AdvancedHMI app simultaneously.

Archie,

Thanks - I was figuring it could be done, just wanted to make sure beforehand.

This is going to make maintenance work on the line a lot easier.

Secpcb said:

... can both HMI's be on the same PC (theirs and an AdvancedHMI) using the same Ethernet connection...

Click to expand...

The only way to be sure if you can have both HMI's running on the same PC would be to install a simple AdvancedHMI project on the existing PC & test if they both can communicate,.

There are so many things I can think of that may be problems trying to set up 2 HMI programs on the same PLC if they are both using the same comm's to the same PLC.

I would write a simple AdvancedHMI project of one PB w/ status light & one integer read/write, with a few lines of "dummy" code in the PLC to be controlled / modified before writing the entire maintenance HMI & making all the needed changes in the PLC logic without testing.