Had an interesting experience this morning.
An old Panelview 600, 2711-K6C5X series B to be precise, comes up as error 32. Unfortunately it seems we don't have a spare, but this thread seems to suggest that replacing the RTC will do the trick, and I know I've got a couple PV 1000s on the shelf.
Sure enough, one of them is a series B that uses the same DS1643-C03 chip, so I pop it out of that one and into the 600… and the panel stalls at self test 24 -- 'Performed CRC base firmware check'.
Not sure what the firmware would have to do with the RTC, but I know how to handle that -- I grab a flash card, copy the appropriate firmware on, and drop it in. The firmware copies to the terminal… and now it's error 26, 'Firmware not compatible with hardware'. I'm confident I got the right firmware for the terminal (I double check anyways though; I did).
As I'm scratching my head over this, production comes over and asks if I can for the time being I can go online with it and toggle it into auto -- during normal operation they don't use the HMI much, it's only when something goes wrong that it's really needed. So for the moment I swap the original RTC chip back in, close everything up, and then power on… and it boots up to the config page. I drop the program back in and it runs, no further related issues.
But I've still got a couple questions left unanswered. Why did a same model RTC chip yield a firmware compatibility error? Is the original RTC chip going bad and pulling it out and plugging it in again breathed a little life back into it? Or was the original error 32 a red herring and somehow the firmware flash I did while I had the other one in what actually fixed the problem?
All I can say for sure is that this HMI just moved to the top of my 'convince management to spend the money on an upgrade' list.
An old Panelview 600, 2711-K6C5X series B to be precise, comes up as error 32. Unfortunately it seems we don't have a spare, but this thread seems to suggest that replacing the RTC will do the trick, and I know I've got a couple PV 1000s on the shelf.
Sure enough, one of them is a series B that uses the same DS1643-C03 chip, so I pop it out of that one and into the 600… and the panel stalls at self test 24 -- 'Performed CRC base firmware check'.
Not sure what the firmware would have to do with the RTC, but I know how to handle that -- I grab a flash card, copy the appropriate firmware on, and drop it in. The firmware copies to the terminal… and now it's error 26, 'Firmware not compatible with hardware'. I'm confident I got the right firmware for the terminal (I double check anyways though; I did).
As I'm scratching my head over this, production comes over and asks if I can for the time being I can go online with it and toggle it into auto -- during normal operation they don't use the HMI much, it's only when something goes wrong that it's really needed. So for the moment I swap the original RTC chip back in, close everything up, and then power on… and it boots up to the config page. I drop the program back in and it runs, no further related issues.
But I've still got a couple questions left unanswered. Why did a same model RTC chip yield a firmware compatibility error? Is the original RTC chip going bad and pulling it out and plugging it in again breathed a little life back into it? Or was the original error 32 a red herring and somehow the firmware flash I did while I had the other one in what actually fixed the problem?
All I can say for sure is that this HMI just moved to the top of my 'convince management to spend the money on an upgrade' list.
