Panelview 600 Standard to L81E

bob12

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May 2022
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Hello All. I have an interesting one for you. I have a brand new Panelview 600 Standard 2711-K6C20 and I'd like to get it to talk to an L81E. Is this possible? I called Rockwell tech support just to find out that no one there has ever even thought of doing this. So the question is, can it be done? If so how and if not then why not?



Here's what I've done so far. The PV is ethernet so using panelbuilder I setup a test screen. I have an ENBT in slot 1 and an L61 in slot 2 (slot 0 is being used for something else). After figuring out how to add a node then adding the PLC's IP and path I got it working. My setup is: IP of 192.168.1.15 and a path of 1 2 (that's 1 space 2) this works flawlessly. I then swapped the L61 with the L81E, put the same program in the L81E and nothing. v33 of Studio firmware by the way. The PV just says it can't connect. To do a sanity check I moved the L81E to slot 1 and put the L61 back into slot 2. I also gave the L81E the IP of 192.168.1.15 and connected the PV directly do it. So in this setup L81E in slot 1 (using it's ethernet) and L61 in slot 2 the PV works again talking to the L61. So bare ethernet on an L81E works as it should. So whatever port this PV talks on works on L81E ethernet hardware. Then just for laughs I set up a produced / consumed tag between the two processors and that works. So long story longer, I have a tag produced in the L81E being consumed by the L61, then being displayed on the PV standard.



So after very long winded and probably confusing post, is there a way to get an L81E and a PV 600 standard to talk? If so what would the path be? A simple 1 didn't work. A simple 1 space 1 didn't work. Any ideas?



And disclaimer, yes I can save the current headache and buy a new PV but that's not the point here. The point here is I have a plant full of working PV standards and a corporate plan to update the L61's to L81E's. So finding a way to get this to work will save a lot of time. Finding out this isn't possible will upset a lot of corporate people but will be a lessons learned for the future.
 
Welcome to the PLCTalk forum community !

There was another user asking a similar question with PanelView Standard 600 terminals and a 1756-L84ES controller that was replacing a 1756-L72. They appeared to only have trouble with one specific tag that was a DINT used as an Alarm Trigger.

http://plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=134917

Since you're doing test applications with a test unit, hopefully we have the opportunity to do some troubleshooting and investigation.

What firmware do you have loaded in the PanelView 600 ?

Is there an error code or message that shows on your test application ?

What is the exact tag syntax you are using ? What data type are your test tag(s) (INT, DINT, BOOL, REAL, etc) ? Are you using PLC/SLC Data Table Mapping to emulate an N, F, or B data file ?

The fact that you're using a 1756-ENBT to bridge to the backplane suggests that this isn't an issue with the Ethernet port on the 1756-L81E, but rather a syntax or protocol issue with the controller itself.

The other PLCTalk thread I linked to was also using a separate EtherNet/IP modules (a 1756-EN2T) instead of the built-in port on the 5580 series controller.

It would be interesting to see if the error was different if you removed the backplane hop (1, 2) and made the 1756-L81E's IP address the endpoint of the PanelBuilder controller path.

Do you have the ability to set up a port mirror or other intercept to collect the raw Ethernet traffic from the PanelView using Wireshark ?

Again, welcome to the PLCTalk forum community !
 
Thanks for getting back with me Ken. I changed my test setup a bit to somewhat match the link you sent me. So now in slot 0 is the L61 and L81E. In slot 1 is now an EN2T. With the L61 in slot 0 and the panelview setup with an ip of 192.168.1.15 and a path of 1 0 it works just as it should. Swapping in the L81E and it no longer works. To answer your questions:



The panelview firmware is 4.46.


Yes I get a Read Error. It says: IP: 192.168.1.15, Path: 1 0, Tag: Value; Length: 4.



For this test in the PV I'm using ControlLogix type DINT and the tag in the PLC is called Value and is also type DINT.


It has been years since I've touched panelbuilder. Other than DINT I added an indicator but couldn't get a bool to work so I went with a SINT. Do I have other options? I'd like to see a bit / bool work if possible. The SINT worked on the L61 but again with a mirror program in the L81E v33 it just gives a read error.


I do have the ability to use wireshark however I'm not good with it so you may have to direct me on how to use it.
 
What sort of Ethernet switch do you have ?

The simplest way to intercept this traffic with Wireshark is to configure a switch to do "port mirroring" that reproduces all of the traffic from the PanelView's port onto another port, so you can capture it with Wireshark.

Just start up Wireshark, designate the correct Ethernet interface, make sure you're seeing some traffic to and from the PanelView's IP address, and then save that capture. ZIP and post here, and separately ZIP and post the PanelBuilder32 application.

Maybe the 5580 just flat out rejects the type of tag read that the PanelView Standards use. It would be very useful to capture traffic to and from the L7x and the L8x so they can be compared.
 
Ok let me know if this worked. I zipped up three PCAP files. They are called FirstL61, SecondL81E, and ThirdL61. I really don't know how to read these other than in the first and third files I can see it say CIP success and in the second L81E one it throws errors. I was hoping to see the raw values of each tag but I couldn't find that info in the PCAP file. Hopefully you can make sense of these and share the results. The third PCAP file was just more of a sanity check for me. The IPs may seem confusing, I don't do this often so I had to get cute. I did visually see that the L61 was working on the panelview and the L81E was giving the same error so I know from a network stand point it worked.
 
A little side note, I also wanted to get a PV+ CE 1250 to work with the L81E but found that it's firmware maxes out at 5.1 which isn't allowed with the L81E. I found a tech note on a workaround and got that working this evening. So I can confirm with my current test setup that a PV+ CE 1250 at firmware v5.1 does indeed talk to the L81E at firmware v33. Now I just need to figure out this PV 600 Standard...
 
Thanks for that detail, Bob ! If you can post the technote number that would be helpful.

I dug into the PCAP files a little bit and it looks like the PV600 tries a couple of different methods before choosing one that succeeds to the 1756-L6x controller.

Part of that process appears to be the PV600 getting no response at all from the 1756-L6x when it initially tries a messaging connection. It moves on to an "unconnected message manager" method.

When it attempts the same connection to a 1756-L81E, it gets an error response instead of no answer at all.

I will dig a little further when I get home.
 
The document is:

ID: IN3983 | Access Levels: TechConnect
Support for new controllers with old PanelView Plus 5.10 terminals

I don't have a link for it, and I don't believe I can attach it since it requires a TechConnect account.

Thanks for your last post, if there's anything else you'd like me to try please let me know. I read through the other persons post that you gave me the link to. I replied hoping to find out what their path was to at least get some of it working. Sadly, my call to Rockwell didn't help any either. They seem to lose interest when I talk about legacy equipment.
 

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