Needing some help with conversion from PV600 to PanelView Plus 700...

I have run into a situation where I am now on "borrowed time". Our company has finally used it's last PV600 "spare" and now we are going to have to make the leap to the PanelView Plus 700.

I have been in charge of the conversion and for the most part everything has gone as smoothly as possible. I was able to get all the tags set up properly and I have communications to the PLC. This is where my two problems/questions come into play.

1.) On the PanelView 600, every time there was an "alarm" event, a banner would pop up and to acknowledge this, the operator would have to press F10. I am getting the same alarm banner on the new PanelView Plus but I can not seem to get the alarm to acknowledge. If I press other function keys, I can see items changing on the screen behind the banner though. No matter what I try, I can not get the Alarms banner to clear. What is the trick to this issue?

2. I have noticed that the communications between the screen and PV are really slow on the new panelview too. I saw somewhere about a tech note on how to address this issue and speed up the communications but now I can not find it. What is the method to speed up communications?

Thank you for your time...

Please give the full model # of your PV and what comunication are you using.

(Ethernet, Serial, Dh+, etc)

EDIT: Welcome to the Forum also. (Sorry about that, I should have led with that line.)

BCS

Sorry I meant to include that information and then promptly forgot...

The old PanelView 600 is 2711-K6C5 and the new PanelView Plus 700 is 2711P-K7C4A8.

The communications in use is a serialized DH485 from the PLC to the PanelView.

Hello,
Sorry for the delay, I seen that there were a few Guru's browsing your post and I thought for sure one of them would have given you the answer.

I will do my best to help you on at least one of your problems.

In Factory Talk View ME go to EDIT > Key Assignments here you should get a pop up where you can assign the keys.


Or just go to your Alarm Display under "Graphics and right click on the display, then choose key assignments.


This should show you what key is assigned or you can assign one from here.


The help menu in this box is also usefull.


Hope this at least gets you pointed in the right direction


BCS

Ok, did a little poking around on your second problem.

You say communications are slow between the screen and the PV.

I take this to mean that when you press a function key there is a delay before you see the action on the screen.
Is this correct??

If so in Factory Talk View ME go to EDIT > Display Settings, in the lower left hand corner you will see the Maimum Tag Update Rate (this is set to 1 second by default)

Try to change this to a smaller time and see if that helps.

Or you can just go to one of your dispalys under "Graphics"
and right click then choose "Dispaly Settings" and get to it that way. (right click on an area where there is not already a button or something)


I have not done this before either so you may have to go to each screen and change the update rate one by one. (not sure)

Again hopefully this will help, but if not just post back and someone will try to give you a better answer to help you out.

BCS

Thank you for the reply. I have already tried this. For the alarm banner/screen I have assigned a Alarm Acknowledge Button to F10. This is where things get weird for me...

To me it appears that as soon as the alarm banner is triggered, it then becomes an inactive screen and gives the focus back to the screen underneath the the alarm banner. When I press F10, nothing happens. I even set it up so that when that button is pressed it should outline the button in green. It will not even do that. I then tried to put the alarm acknowledge button on the screen behind the banner and setting the visibility to false (because I can for some reason control the functions there even with an alarm present, which leads me to the assumption that the alarm banner no longer has the focus). Even when i do this, there is no response from the alarms banner.

In FTVME go to your alarm graphic and right click select display settings and see if display top is set to "on top and the "Cannot Be Replaced" box is checked.

Yes that is correct it does indeed show "On Top" and "Cannot Be Replaced" as both active.

Ok, just a disclaimer:

I am a novice myself so most of this is a first time for me also.

Since no one else was answering your post I thought I would have a swing at it.
(Dont want to waist your time, but I learn from it as well)

Now that I have this out there hopefully those who do have the answers will chime in.

I am looking now at some FTV files from running projects to see if I can find something out for you.

BCS

No problem... I have done several conversions on different projects and this is the first time I have run into this issue. I am beginning to wonder if there is something that I am overlooking in the new securities of the panelview plus or even if I don't have my "alarm setup" parameters correct.

I have just been working on it for 3 weeks now and have no where else to go...

I am beginning to wonder if there is something that I am overlooking in the new securities of the panelview plus or even if I don't have my "alarm setup" parameters correct.

Click to expand...

Just a shot in the dark here, but under "Display Settings" for your alarm banner do you have a security code placed in the security code box?

If so are you acutally logged in with rights to the security code?

I know that sounds stupid simple but you never know!!

I have been looking but cant come up with any hits where someone else has had the same problem.

Good Luck

BCS

Sorry to come at you with a shotgun approach like this, but like I said I am learning also.
No one else has cut in with any ideas so here is another one from me.

Under display settings there is a box that can be checked for "Disable Initial Input Focus".

If you press "Help" and read on this, it says:

"You might do this if you want an on-top display such as the alarm banner to retain its focus when an underlying screen changes"

This sounds alot like what you describe is happening to you.
You are not able to acknowlage the alarm banner, but you are pressing other function buttons that change the screen behind the alarm banner, causing the alarm banner to loose focus.

I would imagine that you just need to touch the alarm banner again to bring it into focus, but since you are using function keys instead of touch screen not sure how you would accomplish this.

Would seem that once you get the acknowlage part squared away the out of focus alarm banner problem will be cleared up also as long as the operator does not touch a different button first and take the banner out of focus again.

Hopefully I am on track with my theory.

BCS

Edit: I looked up "Input Focus" from the help menu, Alarm Banner is on the list of objects that can be selected for Focus, and it would seem that it needs to be in-focus in order for it to receive input.

It also says that you can scroll through the objects to select which one will have focus. (but again not sure how to do this with nontouch, maybe arrow keys)

OK here is what I have found out... (Maybe... I have changed so many setting in the last three weeks that it is possible that it is an unknown magical combination, we will find out when I convert the next machine over which as a few differences in the screens.)

For some reason, it appears that the alarm banner and the diagnostics banner were actually fighting each other. They are both set up for "On Top" and "Can Not Replace". I changed all "F" function keys on the diagnostics banner to "K" function keys. Then in "Display Settings" on both banners I set "Maximum Tag Update Rate:" to .25 seconds. I then went to "Alarm Setup" and in the "Advanced" tab, I set the hold time to 50 ms and the "Maximum Update Rate (Second):" to .25. This seems to have cleared up the issues with the alarms banner.

When I convert the next PanelView I will better be able to see if this was truly the actual fix or if I have just finally got the right combination in the three weeks of fiddling with it. When I figure out if this is the correct solution, I will definitely post it here so others may find this useful.

Now I just have to figure out why the communications between the PLC and PV are lagging so badly. It takes several seconds for the screens to change or update their values where on the old PV600 it was all instantaneous.