C650 - Clarification on VC4 Compatibility

Question

The customer is currently using VC4 visualization in Automation Studio 4 with a C70 panel.

For an upgrade to Automation Studio 6, considering the C650 platform, will the same visualization pages continue to work without changes, or will modifications be required?

Answer

For most C650 devices, VC4 visualization support will still be available, so existing visualization pages can generally be reused.

However, the 5.7" C70 panel does not have a direct replacement in the C650 portfolio. In this case, a larger display would typically be required, which means the existing visualization would need to be upscaled and adapted to the new screen resolution/size.

Summary

  • Most C650 panels: Existing VC4 pages should continue to work.

  • 5.7" C70 replacement: No direct equivalent available.

  • Required action: Visualization pages would need resizing/upscaling for the new target panel.

Recommendation

Before migration, review the currently used C70 hardware model and compare it with the planned C650 replacement to estimate whether display layout adjustments will be needed.

VC4 itself is not CRA compliant, so a new solution based on VC4 would require additional assessment and measures to achieve overall machine compliance. However, a non-compliant component does not automatically mean that the complete machine cannot be CRA-compliant, as this depends on the customer’s risk assessment and system design. Nevertheless, B&R recommends using mappView as the preferred future-proof solution.

Even if this works technically, it should be clear that VC4 does not meet the requirements of CRA, and a new solution based on VC4 would not be CRA-compliant.

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you are absolutely right. I updated recommendation part of my post to make it clear.

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Extra note: since AS6 does not support Safety Release anymore you might need to make adjustments in projects with safety when you go from C70 to PPC650.
mappSafety support for PPC650 is still under review, Safety+ will be supported but this requires a different safety processor in your hardware setup.

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Information about VC4 CRA-compliant versus machine CRA-compliant was updated again based on the latest information I got from BnR R&D.

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