As a new engineer, there is always the possibility that you will be given a piece of equipment and asked to get it working. One of the first things you may have to do is to reset it back to factory settings. There may be a username and password involved, but no one told you what they are. So, what do you do in this case?
There is a way to reset the UC20-WL2000 back to the factory settings without knowing the password. This post expands on the Weidmueller UC20 documentation while adding some helpful tips. The Weidmueller source document is available here as well as on the device itself.
There are two ways to access the device, using a standard ethernet cable or a USB cable. If you have also changed the IP address and forgot that as well (or someone else did and didn’t write it down), you will have to use the USB to get in. That’s a straight forward connection, however. You can use a standard USB-to-mini-USB cable plugged in behind the Service X3 cover. Once it is connected, enter 192.168.10.202 into your browser. You should end up at the login page (figure 1).
After clicking the Log in button, you will be taken to the username and password page (figure 2) with the option to click on Forgot password? Clicking on that will take you to the internal documentation (figure 3) where it talks about how to reset the controller to factory settings without a password. This brings us right back to this document.
While reading through that article, I found a few details that were not fully explained. For instance, there is a requirement for a formatted 32GB microSD card that only has a file called RECOVERY (with no file extension). To access the SD card slot, there is a button on one end that causes a section of the device to open. However, when you do this, the 24 VDC power connection through the card-edge connector is disconnected. As a result, booting the UC20 with the microSD card installed and then removing it while the unit is running can be somewhat problematic. The only way to really get around that is to use the USB connection for power. I happened to use a wall plug for this but power from the PC should be sufficient.
So, to set up the SD card, you will need a reader. I happen to have this one from Tripp-Lite but DigiKey carries others as well. Once you format your card, you will need to create a file called RECOVERY. I created a text file (figure 4) and then used Save As to name it “RECOVERY” (figure 5). This saves the file without a file extension. I then erased the original text file (figure 6).
The rest of the steps are straight forward. Since I was using a wall plug to power the UC20, I used the ethernet connection X1 for communication with my laptop. The micro-SD card was pushed into the slot and power was applied using the USB (figure 7). After the controller finished booting, I removed the card from the slot and entered 192.168.0.101 into my browser.
The UC20 may take several minutes to fully boot and become accessible. I found that closing and reopening the browser can help re-establish the connection. Once it’s connected, you should see a popup about how the connection is not private (figure 8). This is normal so just click on the Advanced button at the bottom. From there, click “Proceed to 192.168.0.101 (unsafe).” (Figure 9)
Once the UC20 connects you should see the Update & installation screen. In the upper-right corner, there is a Reset drop-down menu. Select Factory Reset from the menu (Figure 10). You should then see another popup screen (Figure 11).
You will likely see a network interruption message at this point. Click the reload button, and you should be taken to the startup screen with the End-user license agreement (figure 12). After accepting the agreement, the Create an Initial User dialog box will appear (figure 13). This user will be set up with an administrator role.
