Studio 5000 trends only help if they capture the fault, and the intermittent ones never happen while you are watching. This is the trend setup I use: fixed axes, honest sample rates, a trigger, and BOOLs packed into a DINT.
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- PLC Scan Cycles, Polling and SCADA Data:
https://www.joltek.com/blog/plc-scan-cycles-polling-scada-systems-data- Rockwell PLC Lifecycle and Migration Guide:
https://www.joltek.com/blog/rockwell-plc-lifecycle-migration-guide- Root Causes of Downtime in Industrial Automation:
https://www.joltek.com/blog/root-causes-downtime-industrial-automationThe trending answer starts with a story from two years into my career. A servo drive on a high speed line overtorqued and crashed product, and our only history was an MES collector sampling every PLC tag once every five minutes. The event lasted maybe ten seconds, so nothing useful was recorded around it. I was sent to the floor with a laptop to trend it live, and it never happened again while anyone watched.
A trend made by right clicking a tag in Logix Designer shows a rough waveform, but it is unscaled and its time span is arbitrary. Fix the Y axis to the range you expect, pick a time span that fits the event, and set a sample period that reflects how fast the signal can really change, because sensors and relays respond slower than the scan. Then add a start trigger on the transition you care about so the trend keeps samples from before and after the event. Each trend is limited to 8 pens, so write up to 32 BOOLs into the bits of one DINT and trend that single tag.
On Studio 5000 version choice, the Rockwell Automation Product Compatibility and Download Center listed 38.03 as the preferred revision at the time of recording, with 37.05, 36.06 and 35.05 still active. Newest is not automatically right. If the plant already runs version 34, 33 or older, a new major revision means new installs on every laptop and server, so I lean toward what the site already runs, provided the release notes do not flag the drives or protocols you depend on.
The PanelView Plus 700 question comes from a Shanklin shrink sealer bought at auction, running an older CompactLogix 1769 L35E whose firmware tops out at revision 20. A login screen that renders without its username and password fields usually means the HMI cannot reach the controller. Confirm the PLC still holds its program and shows RUN, check the Ethernet path and any switch, ping both devices, and verify the controller path in the PanelView configuration menu and in RSLinx. The bigger red flag is the DeviceNet scanner: back the program up now and bring in a systems integrator, because rebuilding lost DeviceNet configuration is painful.
Wire numbering at scale means page and coordinate cross references; the Procter & Gamble drawings I worked with earlier in my career ran to thousands of pages per machine. Treat prints like software, with major and minor revisions. The episode also reviews a 3D printed home control cabinet built on an AutomationDirect Productivity1000 PLC that sells for about $165, where lever terminal blocks earn praise and red DC wiring does not, since NFPA 79 calls for blue on ungrounded DC control conductors. A Panasonic FP0 test bench whose 24 VDC supply died while testing a relay output gets the field answer: check I/O one point at a time.
Timestamps
0:00 Intro and this week's most upvoted questions
0:35 3D printed home control cabinet on an AutomationDirect PLC
3:56 Reading the PLC power supply spec
6:57 Wire gauge, color codes and lever terminal blocks
11:01 Why engineers should build a training kit
12:28 Failed power supply on a Panasonic FP0 test bench
17:33 I/O checkout one point at a time
19:05 Wire numbering methods and conventions
22:52 Page and coordinate cross referencing
24:02 Revision control for electrical prints
25:51 PanelView Plus login lost on an auction machine
28:12 CompactLogix L35E checks: program, Ethernet, RSLinx
32:29 DeviceNet red flag: back up the PLC now
33:13 Studio 5000 v36 vs v37 vs v38
36:23 Match the versions the plant already runs
38:06 Studio 5000 trends: a servo overtorque story
41:43 Trend setup: fixed axes, time span, sample rate
44:13 Trend triggers: capture before and after the event
45:17 Pack BOOLs into a DINT to beat the pen limit
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