Panelview 1000 lost program

Hello,

I made the very beginner mistake of toying with solenoid connections while the power was on. As a result, I made a spark and the whole bank of solenoids was dim. Tried to restart the machine, and the PanelView could not load the program. I have no idea if the PLC took a hit.

Some information on hardware: machine built in 2000, SLC 5/04, PV1000 (v4.0).
We have backup of the PV program, but the compact disk we have I tried and tried and no matter what I did (format in FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS) it didn't want to read it. I tried using the HMI to format the card and that didn't work either.
Pass through didn't work, RSLinx saw the PLC but not the HMI. My next route was to use RS232 on the back side and pray that we have the software to connect to it, but what software do I need exactly? I'm fairly certain we did not modify the HMI at all, just the PLC, so I'm not sure what other software we have other than RSLogix 500. Unfortunately the machine was built on the outside and the company is no longer around.

Any help is appreciated. I'm VERY new to this stuff, and I find google to only be so helpful.

Welcome to the PLCTalk forum community !

Unfortunately you're probably in the weeds on this.

Flip over the PanelView and post the exact part number. It's probably "2711-_10_ _ 8" but the exact part number might matter to determine what each port does. I'll assume it's a "Standard PanelView" with DH+.

V4 firmware means it definitely supports CompactFlash cards in an ATA style carrier, but only formatted for FAT16 (so under 2 GB).

You may be able to reload the program using that RS-232 cable. It's not the same cable as you would use for the SLC: it's a "straight through", not a "null modem". Any 1:1 pinned serial cable should work.

The software is called "PanelBuilder32". The last revision was 3.83 or so, in the late 1990s or early 2000's. It doesn't need activation, and lots of people have it.

Your archive file should have a *.PVA (PanelView Application) or *.PBA (PanelBuilder Application) extension. The *.PBA has all the database and backup and project info, while *.PVA could have some of it stripped out.

If you can ZIP and post the program, there are experts here who might be able to take a look at it.

Thanks!

I will get a part number tomorrow.

I really hope the 512MB Transcend CompactFlash card I have will work, it's running through an adapter unfortunately. I had it formatted in Windows 10 as FAT and it did not work. I may have to download another program or do it through command prompt to force FAT16.

Thanks for the cable information, this seems to be prevalent across many of these devices. None of the cables are "standardized" they all have some special thing about them. Sucks, but I'll see what I can do.

PanelBuilder32; I will look this up tomorrow and hope that IT doesn't destroy my hope of getting this back up and running. The file is saved in a *.PBA, thankfully.

Unfortunately I cannot share programs. Thank you for all of the information, I'm really hoping I can save it tomorrow as I have a demo Thursday...

Exact pn is 2711-T10C9

We don’t have PB32, or any serial number for it. Thinking I’m dead in the water here. Likely have to call someone out to put the program on this for me.

Thanks for that part number; it's actually critical.

The "9" means that the terminal doesn't have DH+ networking, which is what would be typical with an SLC-5/04 controller.

Instead, the terminal has two RS-232 serial ports.

One is a Printer port only, it should be literally labeled "Printer". But unlike some other models of PanelView, the Printer port cannot be used for upload and download.

The other port is the network port. It implements Data Highway 485 protocol over RS-232.

To connect to it, you would need a device that runs DH485 protocol natively, and a straight-through serial cable (typically the one that is connected to the SLC-5/0x serial port).

In the modern era, that's a 1747-UIC USB to DH485 converter. A general purpose USB/RS232 converter will not work.

I would expect any integrator who does Allen-Bradley work for a living to have those tools.

Ah I see, this makes sense. There are 2 Serial ports. One connected to PLC and one empty (printer port). Is it possible that this is why it would not read the cards I tried? Or should it still be able to? Maybe it needs an AB proprietary card? I’ll make sure to include the PV part number in my email to the service guy. This sounds like something he should know.


I do have someone scheduled to come out later this week to do the download, as well as a rfq sent to our AB distro for the software.

Thanks for the help Ken!

feojoe said:

Ah I see, this makes sense. There are 2 Serial ports. One connected to PLC and one empty (printer port). Is it possible that this is why it would not read the cards I tried? Or should it still be able to? Maybe it needs an AB proprietary card? I’ll make sure to include the PV part number in my email to the service guy. This sounds like something he should know.

Click to expand...

The setup or connections of your serial ports should have nothing to do with the memory card. A proprietary card is not needed, but it is picky about formatting.

Pull up a chair.... naw, we can do a standup.

In the mid/early 1990s, ATA Flash and Linear Flash were the competing technologies for removable storage.

Allen Bradley already had a linear flash drive in the PanelView Enhanced terminals built in BC by Intecolor, and a source for linear flash cards. But PCMCIA / PC Card drives weren't standard in laptop computers and external drives were expensive.

The Milwaukee hardware developers hedged their bets and built a dual mode reader into the PanelView Standard.

PanelView Standard terminals with v1 or v2 firmware will only use linear flash cards, which will not work in most laptops even with PC Card slots.

V3 and later firmware supports both ATA Flash and Linear Flash.

The most common ATA flash devices today are CompactFlash cards, in a PCMCIA Type II carrier. Because the PanelView OS only supports FAT16, you typically need a card that is 2 GB or smaller and can be formatted with FAT16.

These terminals definitely will not support FAT32 or NTFS or any other filesystem.

Only the root directory is used.

It's entirely possible that the terminal was damaged by this power loss, and that the serial ports or the CF card interface are toast.

When I was the local service guy, I would come do this sort of re-load for free if I could also get the *.PBA file and quote a retrofit.

I did try several different formats at FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, apart from changing the partition table from MBR to GPT.

I’m hoping the panel is still functional. The DH+ light on the PLC is flashing, indicating to me no communication/error in communicating. The HMI is not loaded with a program so to me this makes sense.

As for software, 2711-ND3A shows up as “ALLEN BRADLEY 2711-ND3A PANELVIEW ND3 ESD ACCESSORY” on Rockwell’s part search. Is this the correct part number to ask about? I see there is also 2711-ND3AM, which notes MED Accessory. Both should have the software correct?

Thanks for the help Ken.


It turns out the only thing that needed to be done was a quick file conversion from *.PBA to *.PVA for the HMI to read the file. That's it. I was able to get it done with PanelBuilder32, Save As *.PVA. We bought PB32, since 2 other machines use this same old panel with the same file type backed up. I will be backing up all of these files in the correct format to be loaded from a card in the future.


Thank you again!

Thanks very much for the feedback / followup !