cRIO 9058 beginner question

[BrianM55]

Hello all,

I am a technician and I was wondering if anyone here would be able to point me in the right direction.  I am new to Labview and have limited experience working with PLC's.  We have 4 pieces of equipment that originally had a National Instruments cRIO 9014 controlling the machine.  The PLC's have been upgraded to a newer NI cRIO 9058 and now the machines do not work.  I have received instructions from the company that manufactured the equipment but they are leaving out a lot of information.  Basically they want me to use Labview 2020 with "updated license" to deploy a file with extension .Ivproj (which I do not currently have but have requested it) onto the new cRIO 9058 PLC.  

My questions are, which license would I need to purchase from NI to active Labview 2020 so that I may deploy the file?

Also, if they are unable to give me a copy of the .Ivproj file is there a way I can navigate to this file that should already be installed on the cRIO 9058 PLC?

My ultimate goal is to be able to use the test panel feature in NI MAX to be able to troubleshoot problems with the unit.

Thank you for your advise!

[crossrulz · Accepted solution]

1. A cRIO is not considered a PLC.  PLCs and cRIOs can meet the same requirements, but the architectures are completely different.  PLCs are based on a single processor and typically programed with ladder logic.  A cRIO has a RealTime (RT) operating system and a FPGA backplane to control the IO, all programmed with LabVIEW.

2. What is on the cRIO is an executable (for the RT application) with possibly a bit file (to define the FPGA).  There is no getting code back from that.  You need the original code.

3. You don't deploy a lvproj (LabVIEW project) file.  The project file is an access point for the code (.vi, .ctl, etc. files) and also defines the builds.  You can deploy the build from the project.

4. To program a cRIO, you need LabVIEW, LabVIEW RT, and possibly LabVIEW FPGA.  I think there is a bundle to get all 3 together.

5. The reason your current build will not work with the new cRIO is because the OS between the cRIOs is completely different (Pharlap? vs. NI Linux RT).

6. Since it sounds like you are very new to this, I would recommend you find a good, if possible local, consultant that has experience with cRIOs.

[BrianM55]

Thank you for the information!  As I had suspected, this is way out of my area of expertise.  I will contact the equipment manufacturer to get further direction.  Again, i very much appreciate your help! 

[rolfk]

Actually the 901x use VxWorks. Not that it really matters, it is distinctively different to the NI Linux RT for x64 on the 905x family and needs a complete recompile from the source code of the project, and quite possibly some editing of said source code depending on the used features and functions in the application.

The 905x family is supported with NI-CompactRIO 15.5 and later and according LabVIEW 2016 and later.

[BrianM55]

Thank you Rolf for the further insight into the issue of upgrading from a cRIO 9014 to a cRIO 9058!  These are questions and possible solutions I may need to relay to the engineering team that is responsible for the equipment in question.  Hopefully they will send me the project file so I will have something to go on.