Problem with Panelview plus 700

Revnus

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Join Date
Aug 2019
Location
Brazil
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71
Hi. I'm working on a plant that has a panelview plus 700.

Problem is that from time to time, the alarm list shows an old false alarm instead of the real alarm. For example: Instead of "emergency active" it will show "low pressure", which is an old alarm that is already ok.

Operators at the area try to find the alarm for a long time, until they realize it is a false alarm. Then they shutdown the runtime application using a screen button leading to the panelview builtin options, and then they run application again. Doing this process, the real alarm will show, not the false one.

Since I dont have any better clue, I tried to create other .MER using remote clear history function from FTViewME, but the panelview firmware does not support runtime version that have this function..
Other option would be to reset the runtime using logic, shutting down automatically instead of operators doing it manually when they notice the alarm is not real, but I dont know how to do it.

I suspect the problem might be something related to logs or cache, but what can I do?

The time that the area operators spend trying to find what is causing a fake alarm is really expensive to the plant. If I cant find a solution, I think they will have to buy other HMI.

Other info:
- Latest firmware listed in SCDC for panelview plus 700 is 5.1, but when I go to terminal settings, it shows ME Station 6.0.
- Intermitent problem. It might not happen for a week or a month.
- I will try to increase the number of alarms (128 now), this will delay the problem but wont solve. What is the max number of alarms in PanelviewPlus 700, btw?

Discovering the solution for the real problem (Cache? Logs?) will be great, but a other solutions as showing how to to shutdown the Runtime automatically, are ok aswell.

Thanks!!!
 
You didn't mention whether this is a new installation or an old one which was ok yesterday.

If it is a new installation, could it be the alarm tag is offset in design?
 
this might help, i am still learning the alarm screen stuff.

open the application, below the graphics tab is the alarm tab.
click on alarm setup. a window will open showing you all the alarm trigger names. the messages tab will list all the alarm messages and to the left will be
the tag that generated the fault. look in the plc program for the tag reference, to see what generated the fault.

use google and look for "how to create an alarm screen on a panelview terminal"
there are multiple youtube videos that might help.
hope this helps.
james
 
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You didn't mention whether this is a new installation or an old one which was ok yesterday.

If it is a new installation, could it be the alarm tag is offset in design?

Its an old one. I dont know if I understood correctly what did you want to say with "offset in design". Do you mean offset in the alarm banner? Well, in this case that fake alarm shouldnt appear anyway, since its already "ok".
 
this might help, i am still learning the alarm screen stuff.

open the application, below the graphics tab is the alarm tab.
click on alarm setup. a window will open showing you all the alarm trigger names. the messages tab will list all the alarm messages and to the left will be
the tag that generated the fault. look in the plc program for the tag reference, to see what generated the fault.

use google and look for "how to create an alarm screen on a panelview terminal"
there are multiple youtube videos that might help.
hope this helps.
james

Alarm screen is already created. And the fake alarm is not active on PLC, only in the HMI. As I said, I supect of cache/memory/log capacity problem..
 
The proper approach is to actually troubleshoot the problem, instead of holding tight to the conclusion that it's a buffer, cache, or firmware bug issue that can only be resolved by rebooting the terminal. The PanelView Plus and FactoryTalk View ME have a tricky enough Alarm engine, historically, without assuming that there isn't a simpler explanation.

The first few things I would do are:

1. Examine the trigger type and configuration of the "false" and "real" alarms that most recently appeared to conflict.

2. Carefully check the FactoryTalk Diagnostics to be sure that blocks of tags are not failing to be updated because of a physical network problem or a syntax problem.

3. Plan an investigation and data collection process for the next time the operators believe they are seeing a "false" alarm.


The PanelView Plus "Compact" terminals had a 200 Alarm limit, and the PanelView Plus 7 Standard terminals had a 200 Alarm limit before v9, and 500 alarms after.

The default for the number of historical alarms (logged so you can page back through them) is 128, which you might be seeing in the [History] field. That can be increased to as many as 10,0000 though that can eat up memory in the smaller terminals.

There is a decent Alarm engine FAQ / application advice document in the Knowledgebase:

https://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/0036748
 
The proper approach is to actually troubleshoot the problem, instead of holding tight to the conclusion that it's a buffer, cache, or firmware bug issue that can only be resolved by rebooting the terminal. The PanelView Plus and FactoryTalk View ME have a tricky enough Alarm engine, historically, without assuming that there isn't a simpler explanation.

The first few things I would do are:

1. Examine the trigger type and configuration of the "false" and "real" alarms that most recently appeared to conflict.

2. Carefully check the FactoryTalk Diagnostics to be sure that blocks of tags are not failing to be updated because of a physical network problem or a syntax problem.

3. Plan an investigation and data collection process for the next time the operators believe they are seeing a "false" alarm.


The PanelView Plus "Compact" terminals had a 200 Alarm limit, and the PanelView Plus 7 Standard terminals had a 200 Alarm limit before v9, and 500 alarms after.

The default for the number of historical alarms (logged so you can page back through them) is 128, which you might be seeing in the [History] field. That can be increased to as many as 10,0000 though that can eat up memory in the smaller terminals.

There is a decent Alarm engine FAQ / application advice document in the Knowledgebase:

https://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/0036748

Thank you for the tips! You are right. It is better to diagnosis correctly the problem. I did not have ideas for troubleshooting it correctly, except for the third one (which was planned, but the problem didnt occur). I will keep then in mind when dealing with similars problems.
 
Also, there *was* a "phantom alarm" issue with firmware 6.10 which was caused by power cycles, not fixed by power cycles.

https://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/answer_view/a_id/570384/loc/en_US#__highlight

I think this is it!
Ill update the firmware.
(One thing that I did not know before is that the PV+ is 6-700 not just 700, so it can be upgraded to 12.0).

The firmware is something between 6.0 and 6.1, and it seems that it happened after a power cycle.
The reset I was referring to, was the runtime application, not the power of the HMI.
But this phantom alarm really matches the problem.

Thank you very much sir!


Just a quick question:
How did you find this rockwell answer? I tried searching the knowledge base, but couldnt find this one. Guess I was not doing it right.
 
Last edited:

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