PanelView Plus 7 Performance

Hi people - I'd appreciate a little help/ information please.


We have a new panel as per the title. When I come to downgrade the firmware (as our company is behind - running v9 FT View) - because the panel is series B - it won't allow anything below version 12.


Now I know we are behind - but before I go running to management to say we need to purchase a newer version of FT View - I just want to check this is correct (and series A firmware won't run on it ot something stupid?).


Also I was surprised to see no version 13 firmware as I believe thats the latest FT View version (I'm rusty - I predominantly work on siemens).


Thanks in advance
Rob

Can't say whether this is normal, but there shouldn't be any particular need to downgrade the firmware. Unlike the Logix platform, the hardware firmware does not need to match the version of the software. In general, a file created with an older software revision will download and run just fine on newer hardware.

The reverse isn't true -- you can't load newer software on older firmware, but I would not expect any issues loading a v9 .mer onto anything higher.

Thanks very much for the reply.


It looks like I got a little mixed up between the PLC & HMI.


On the siemens front I've found largely you can do the same (run wrong firmware in the software compared to the PLC etc.) and a lot of times its ok - sometimes it bites.


So maybe this isn't 'perfect', but you've clarified that at least we can proceed.


Thanks a lot
Rob

Glad he got you sorted. And for anyone else reading this thread, the PanelView Plus 7 Series B units are significantly different from their Series A counterparts. Some of that is good, some not so good, and some...time will tell. They use a Windows 10-based operating system instead of the older Windows CE. These units with the new O/S started with version 12 firmware and cannot flash back to anything older.

But, as plvlce noted, the all PVP terminals can run older applications without having to downgrade the firmware. I'm sure there may be be a gotcha here and there. But I have never had an issue running an older application on a newer terminal.

As for ver 13 firmware. As of today, it doesn't look like it is available for any of the PVP products. I don't recall if it was previously available or not.

OG