Printing from a PanelView Plus 7 Performance Series A using a Raspberry Pi?

[Dustball]

I have a customer who has 20 of our systems using PanelView Plus 7 Performance Series A terminals. With how hard it is to find printer nowadays that still works with the old Windows CE 6.0 printer drivers, our customer would like to find a solution to using newer printers with the older PanelViews. With the Series B terminals using only IPP compatible printers, this also adds an extra printer to the mix- one printer for Series A PV's and one printer for Series B PV's.

Does anyone know of existing Raspberry Pi software that would allow the Pi to act as an older printer then translate and re-transmit the print data to a newer printer?

 

[widelto]

You can print directly from PLCs, You do not mention what PLC you are using.

 

[Ken Roach]

That's a great question. Not a lot of users take advantage of the PanelView Plus printing features so it's not particularly well understood (including by me).

Somebody might have an on-point answer for you, but I figure it's useful to lay some groundwork:

To my knowledge, the PV+7 operating systems are:

PV+ 7 Standard Series A Windows CE 6.0
PV+ 7 Perforamnce Series A Windows CE 6.0
PV+ 7 Standard Series B Windows CE 6.0
PV+ 7 Performance Series B Windows 10 IoT Core

The Knowledgebase article that has the most useful printing support information is:

https://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/111636/loc/en_US

Don't be disheartened by that article's comments that essentially say "well, Windows CE is old and your new printer probably won't work".

Do you have a specific modern printer in mind ?

I installed an AirPrint server on a Raspberry Pi (connected over USB) following these instructions to install the Avahi daemon, which allowed an iPhone user on my network to print to a Brother HL2170W laser printer from 2007 or so.

 

[Dustball]

You can print directly from PLCs, You do not mention what PLC you are using.

It needs to be from the PanelView as we're using graphics (company logo) in the printed report. In addition, we want to avoid modifying any PLC code as much as possible as the code has been validated (medical device manufacturing).

Sample report attached.

 

[Dustball]

That's a great question. Not a lot of users take advantage of the PanelView Plus printing features so it's not particularly well understood (including by me).

Somebody might have an on-point answer for you, but I figure it's useful to lay some groundwork:

To my knowledge, the PV+7 operating systems are:

PV+ 7 Standard Series A Windows CE 6.0
PV+ 7 Perforamnce Series A Windows CE 6.0
PV+ 7 Standard Series B Windows CE 6.0
PV+ 7 Performance Series B Windows 10 IoT Core

The Knowledgebase article that has the most useful printing support information is:

https://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/111636/loc/en_US

Don't be disheartened by that article's comments that essentially say "well, Windows CE is old and your new printer probably won't work".

Do you have a specific modern printer in mind ?

I installed an AirPrint server on a Raspberry Pi (connected over USB) following these instructions to install the Avahi daemon, which allowed an iPhone user on my network to print to a Brother HL2170W laser printer from 2007 or so.

Thanks for that link- already read through that one in detail previously. No modern printer in mind. I did some more research and HP does have a printer still on the market that does support both PCL 5 and IPP. Just sent the model number to our customer to see if they're interested in evaluating that printer.

BTW, for anyone who is trying to set up a Series B PanelView- IPP will not work unless you jump through a few hoops first. We've been through this with Rockwell tech support extensively and they know about it and there's no fix for it yet. Their very basic note on this defect in the firmware release notes is-

Network printers might not be automatically found. First identified in 2711P-PVP7 Performance 12.101. [Jira 1468236]
To avoid this problem, restart the terminal and try again.

That's our Jira, BTW.

My notes on getting IPP printers visible to FT View ME Station after you've already enabled IPP in Win10 IoT. IPP printers will not appear in the ME Station printer config list unless you reboot from Win10 IoT first.

1. Power on the PanelView and let it auto-load your HMI application.
2. Exit the HMI application to reach the FT View ME Station config screen
3. Exit FT View ME Station to Win 10 IoT
4. To select an IPP printer, don't press the X in the lower left corner in Win10 IoT. You must navigate to Settings-Power Options-Restart. Select Yes when it asks you if you’re sure you want to reboot.
5. Press and hold the small white box in the lower left corner while the PV is booting- this will take you to the FT View ME Station config.
6. Select the printer then go back to the main config screen- load application then run application.