I am contacting you regarding an issue with our B&R Automation PC.
When the Automation PC starts up, it automatically enters the Auto Boot process and then directly launches the Runtime application. Unfortunately, we are currently experiencing a failure of the touchscreen, which prevents us from operating the machine.
As a temporary solution while waiting for the replacement spare part, we would like to connect an external USB mouse and keyboard in order to operate the machine. However, after connecting both devices, the system does not recognize either the mouse or the keyboard.
Could you please advise us on how to enable or activate mouse and keyboard support on the Automation PC? Is there any BIOS setting, Runtime configuration, or startup procedure that would allow the system to detect and use these devices?
At present, the machine is stopped due to this issue, and any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
do you know which software technologies are used inside the Automation PC?
So is it Automation Runtime Embedded and Visual Components 4 (that means: the only operating system on the PC is ARembedded, and no Windows / Linux runs in parallel)?
If yes (I think so), then a external Mouse + Keyboard are not supported at all by this setup unfortunately - Automation Runtime does not have mouse support, and keyboard support ist only possible by parametrizing keyboard keys as “hardware keys” inside the project which has to be done at development time (so no possibility to use / activate that just in the runtime system itself without major changes in the project software).
Another theoretic possbility, but unfortunately also only configurable at development time: if the visualization uses the optional VNC server feature, then the visu is remote operable via network using a VNC client. But as I said, this also has to had been already implemented before by the software developer of the machine, so we at B&R don’t know if the feature was activated by the machine builder or not.
Based on your description, it seems that our Automation PC is indeed running Automation Runtime Embedded with a local HMI visualization, and no Windows or Linux operating system is visible during startup. The system displays “Autoboot” and then directly launches the HMI application.
Unfortunately, the touchscreen is currently defective, which has stopped production because the operators can no longer interact with the HMI.
We understand that external USB mouse and keyboard devices are not supported in this configuration unless they were implemented during the project development phase.
Regarding the VNC server option, we do not know whether this feature was enabled by the machine builder. We have Automation Studio available, but we currently do not know the IP address of the Automation PC and therefore cannot verify if remote access is possible.
Could you please advise if there is any method to:
Discover the IP address of the Automation PC while it is running.
Verify whether the VNC server feature is enabled.
Access the target from Automation Studio without knowing the current IP address.
Any additional recommendation that could help us temporarily operate the machine until the touchscreen spare part arrives would be greatly appreciated.
depending on the ARembedded setup (ARembedded version number + project parameter setup), a PLC’s ip address can be determined by just using the function “browse for targets” in Automation Studio.
This can work if:
the ARembedded used in the machine does already support the function
the function is switched on in the project settings
If this is not possible, you could try to follow this approach to figure out the ip address:
Finding out if VNC is enabled goes in some similar direction: when the ip address is known, then a tcp port scan checking for VNC ports (most common: port 5900 - 5901, but this is also configurable via project software) could help finding out if VNC is active (but also for a VNC access (if configured) you need the password which is setup by the project developer, the’re no “default passwords” set by B&R).
Last but not least: do you have just Automation Studio, or also the project sources? Because B&R systems run compiled code, there’s no possibility to upload the code in a readable / editable way from the running PLC.
So if you have the source code / the Automation Sutdio project, you could have a look into if you find the answers about ip address and VNC server setup by evaluating the project sources.