Replacing the touch screen on a G3 Red Lion HMI

[Lamboom]

Has anyone ever replaced a touch screen on a legacy Red Lion G3 series HMI?

 

[ggc]

There's a facility in Crimson 3 to convert from G3 to Graphite controllers, is that what you're looking for?
But also check the availability of the Graphite screens, there were some long lead times in the covid era.

 

[Lamboom]

It's about rebuilding an old beat up Red Lion

Hi GGC ... Thanks for the reply. If you search Red Lion G3 HMI's on eBay, you will see thousands of touchscreen replacements for the legacy Red Lions... from China naturally. Has anyone ever really succeeded in replacing their old scratched-up dysfunctional touch screen with one of these?

 

[OkiePC]

It's been many years ago since I sent off one for repair to Red Lion. It was a failed backlight power supply in my case, but they were quick and surprisingly economical at that time. I don't know if they still offer repairs for obsolete HMIs though. The G10 we had fixed was a victim of water ingress and I think they turned it around in under a week for under $500 iirc.

 

[Lamboom]

Hi OkiePC .. Red Lion isn't repairing legacy items.. unless they have the parts to do it.. But, I don't want them to do anything. I want to do it! How hard could it be.. rip out the bad stuff and put in the good stuff. Remember I'm talking about replacement parts that are being offered by many suppliers for replacing the touchscreen, or the front window, with the soft buttons.. stuff like that. China probably made the parts to begin with.. now they are trying to sell parts to capitalize on the lack of parts in the US for restoration.. Soooo...has anyone purchased these items? and actually installed one?

 

[parky]

Never done one on that HMI but replaced many on others, we had a Siemens TP something 17" I think, these were obsolete but took it off (is destroyed when removing due to it being stuck on with double sided tape, found the manufacturer but they would not supply it, they gave me one of their resellers details but they were obsolete however, they had two so managed to get them for £50.00 each better than paying £3,500 from the oem who did have a spare HMI. I have replaced a number of Beijers E series including the keypads they were easy, some I even replaced the backlight with LEDs & powered them from the 24v supply just to get them working. it will depend on how it is put together, some are easy, some are almost impossible as it can destroy other components strying to get them off.

 

[Lamboom]

Parky... indeed, it seems it gets tricky.. yet.. there are so many offered on ebay now.. check it out.. search (on ebay) red Lion HMI G3 overlay, or Touch screen...like this link: https://www.vicpas.com/oid1745901/Red-Lion-Controls.htm this stuff is all over ebay. so... who is buying them? And why isn't there any tutorial on You Tube... ?

 

[parky]

Cannot answer many of the questions but many older HMI's were retired because of the ROHS compliance, things like change from lead based solder & so forth. So. there could be a lot of redundant stock out there that contained some of the more hazardous materials, many companies when they stop using a particular part then there is a glut of them that come to the market for example the thermionic valve, most people stopped using them in the 60's or earlier, some types are still manufactured as still in use, some because people want to keep old legacy stuff going & the obvious is the amount of stock that manufacturers do not want that is still availlable.
Most manufacturing companies like the food industry do not have people with the skills or time for repairs, they either send it to a specialist for repair or more often than that they just scrap it & buy a new one, as the systems nowadays are upgraded to keep pace with the latest innovations companies want the latest, it's a throwaway society & just like people they want the latest Iphone. In actual fact, a few years ago I sent off a PV550 for repair, the cost was £10.00 more than a new one from our supplier with our discount.
So as for the question about youtube, as HMI's tend to be mainly for industry then mobody can be bothered to create one as it probably would not be viewed many times.

 

[Lamboom]

Hi parky .. thanks for the info.. you are soooo right.. Red Lion is a particularly awesome HMI, so many bells and whistles .. I was even able to control a LinMot linear motor using only the Red Lion and RS232 2 and 4 wire.. making it do stored curves controling a LinMot drive... without a PLC... The G3 series (crimson 3) is worth saving (restoring)... even tho the new graphite series are reasonably priced. To prove that, you can see new legacy G3's selling for $5000 US .. Just because there are so many systems out there still using the old G3's ... but they don't last forever.. especially the LED backlight ... good for only about 15 years. and no one is offering a replacement for that..

 

[parky]

Yep unfortunately these manufacturers are pushing users into buying the latest equipment, it often happens (Siemens & AB/RW) are prime culprits, the legacy equipment suddenly doubles in price to get you to upgrade, the industry needs to take a step back & support these older systems in a cost effective way, the same happened with consumer electrical/electronic goods, virtually un-repairable, I do believe that white goods now have to be repairable with the idea that rather than creating millions of tons of waste these items can be generally repaired giving a life span of at least 10 years.

 

[Lamboom]

Parky ... yup.. point well made... However, what do you think is going on with all these (many, many, many) Ebay posts to sell replacement touchscreens, yet... none of those sellers know how to install them? They were suppliers to Red Lion for parts, and now try to sell those parts.. as though the parts could actually be installed. In all likelihood, they can't be installed, except by the special equipment at the Red Lion factory. Some of us, who have taking apart electronics, and actually fixed failed items, might think that just because there is a part out there (from China) it is plausible to install it. I was hoping to confer that on this forum. sigh ....

 

[parky]

I agree, without ever having done one on a redlion it's a guess, perhaps it would be easy or at least possible without special equipment many of the ones I have come across either clip in (care needed so as not to brak the retaining lugs but a bit of tape could resolve that) or they have double sided tape to hold them in place. I'm not sure about the supply chain from China, in my experience most stuff are copies not originals, I have had friends buy Mitsubishi or Siemens clones in the FX & S7200 range & have not had problems but some of the so called FX3U plc's are actually clones of the FX2N earlier range & some functions are not present like cannot auto negotiate the baud rate on programming port & unable to alter the PLC parameters but seem to work ok other than that.
I'm afraid its a case of pot luck.

 

[Lamboom]

... I purchased a nice 10 inch RedLion on eBay.. and it's screen looked good good, but when powered, there were serious problems with 1/2 of the picture.. That sort of thing probably is repairable. The seller had to refund the purchase price, but didn't want it back. Might be a good project to try and fix ?