cant connect to a PanelView Plus w/ RS232

[Skidood]

Hi again,

I have many times used RSLinx to connect to PLC's with the DF-1 serial driver and a USB-RS232 adaptor. No problems.
Now I'm trying to connect to a PanelView Plus 600 Rev C using the RS-232 port. It just wont connect. Auto-configure in the DF1 driver setup box doesn't complete. I am doing this while the panel is sitting there at the main screen in Config mode .

I have set all the network settings in the panel back to default, made sure Kepware wasn't installed, re-loaded firmware, tried the straight through serial cable as well as a null modem (which is not the right cable, I know) checked and defaulted the serial port settings, what the heck am I doing wrong?
I know without any doubt that there is nothing wrong with the USB-serial adaptor nor the PC since just yesterday I downloaded a program to another controller.

Any ideas?

 

[Ken Roach]

In general, setting a PV+ to default network settings re-creates the DF1 Full Duplex driver and the Ethernet/IP driver. Double check to be sure it didn't delete the DF1 driver.

You're correct about the straight-through serial cable, of course.

To take a step back, you need to be configuring RSLinx Enterprise to communicate with a PanelView Plus, rather than RSLinx Classic.

Be sure that you've deleted any of the RSLinx Classic serial drivers before you try to configure RSLinx Enterprise serial drivers; they cannot share the same serial hardware.

 

[Skidood]

Thanks....I'm using RSLinx Classic, guess that's the reason.

 

[Ken Roach]

Functionally, I strongly prefer to use USB or CompactFlash to load runtime files onto the serial-only PanelView Plus terminals. If I was stuck on a desert island with serial cables woven of palm fronds, then *maybe* I would do a download over serial.

In my experience, you can configure the RSLinx Classic driver and browse the PV+ device, as a way to verify that it's present and connected.

But if you're planning to use the RSLinx Enterprise driver for upload/download, then it's better to not confuse anything and leave the RSLinx Classic driver alone.

 

[Skidood]

The only reason Im trying to connect with serial is so I have a known working serial connection in order to test communications in the virtual machine I am trying to implement on my laptop Thanks again.

 

[Ken Roach]

A VM creates another layer of complexity, of course.

I strongly prefer to connect my USB devices to the VM and have those drivers on the guest OS. In my experience that's a lot more stable and straightforward than the VMWare implementation of pass-through COM ports.