Fanuc 18i PCMCIA card question

[TDavid]

Our Fadal 3016D with a Fanuc 18i is arriving soon to replace our troublesome 104/D machine.

We have been using USB to upload files to the 104/D, but the Fanuc does not have a USB interface.

Fanuc is telling me that they have had a lot of trouble with off the shelf PCMCIA cards and CompactFlash memory cards. They say that there is only one combo that works and they alone sell it.

However, a 256MB card is $147 alone, which is 10x the street price for one of them!!

Does anyone know the brand and part number of the flash card that they use?

Thanks, TDavid

[Neal]

TDavid--
I bought a 512 meg SANDISK compact flash card and a compact flash PC card adapter from BEST BUY for well under $60.00. I use it all the time in the Fanuc Field Service Training classes as well as in the field and have never had one problem with it.

Neal

[sld4121]

Yes, Neal is correct - almost anything off the shelf will work fine.
I personally use Iomega cards 32-128MB that I buy for about $10 each.
Add a PCMCIA adaptor for $8 from Best Buy and you are good to go.

One note of caution, if you ever have any trouble with a card larger than 256MB, Fanuc will point to the manuals and tell you they say nothing larger.

[Tate]

Get the adapter from Best Buy, I purchased one online and have had nothing but trouble with it.

[wahidbashir]

Friends,
I have three cards. I m able to use them as DNC on 2 machines. But the problem is that not able to take back up on fanuc 21i controls.
On power up machine and by pressing two right most keys. when i come to boot menu.
SRAM back up
then by hitting this. message come NMI occurred.

On other machine with fanuc 18i. i have another problem with the following message.
memory card error 99
i do not know the meanings of these messges.
Is there any one to help me.

[KevinV_MEI]

The error 99 means the card needs to be formatted. There is a utility on the controller to do this. I don't recall the steps to do it though.

[Doctor Tsugami]

I have had experience with these machines,I found some older versions need a card that is very hard to come by, I can only remember that it was called a smart card and required a battery backup , I know this because I had to buy one for my tech that went in to work on a Shimada with an 21i control,it's the only time i have used it. good luck contact me if i can give you anymore help

[sld4121]

What you are thinking of is an SRAM card - very expensive and hard to come by.
They are thinner than the standard PCMCIA adaptors and do require a battery.
I keep one in the event I run across an M series controller i.e. 16M vs. 16iM.
Then I have to run out and get a new battery, as they are dead by the time I use them again.

[wahidbashir]

In which Fanuc manual, I can get memory card error list.

[hembrugguy]

The error 99 means the card needs to be formatted. There is a utility on the controller to do this. I don't recall the steps to do it though.

Not sure of your display, but if you insert the card with power off, hold down the two furtherst right soft keys under the display, and power on the control, you should have a menu to backup, format, etc. screen come up.

[Aesco80]

I have been having this problem with a Bridgeport w/ fanuc series Oi-MC. We do have one card that works, (sandisk 512) but we cannot get any others to work. I was formatting on the machine but since there is no progress bar im not sure how long it should take. The same message "Formatting memory card" keeps flashing, its been running for over half an hour. I tried to format on a pc and at the machine and nothing has worked. We have bought plenty of the same CF cards and none seem to work. Any other suggestions?

[sld4121]

Formatting should only take a minute. But for use on a Oi-MC, you should be able to do a quick format on your computer. On new cards, I don't even bother to format at all.
A side note - Fanuc always used to say nothing larger than 256MB cards.
I buy 32MB or 64MB cards online and rarely , if ever, have an issue with them.