Need Help!- 180I control

[enginepilot007]

Hello, thank you for reading this
180I stand alone control. the panel I motherboard has failed, and Fanuc is saying 9 months for repair. Yes I said 9 months.
Even if the Panel I is gone with the HSSB rotary switch set to 2 shouldn't the control still come up?
I want to install a HSSB/PCI board into an older PC with windows 2000
plug the optical fiber cable into this board, and then install the fanuc screen display software.
My sticking point now is should the control come up with the rotary switch set to 2?
thank you

[cnc2149]

Yes, if you set the HSSB rotary switch to position 2, the CNC and panel i should power up asynchronously (meaning they will not have to wait for each other) so the CNC should power up normally and your normal machine operator panel lamps (e.g. IN POSN, etc) would light up. Confirm that you are setting the HSSB board rotary switch to posn 2 and NOT the MTSW on the front of the CNC Main Board.

You would even be able to bring up hydraulics, jog the axes, etc - just w/o a display. If no success, I would try pulling out the HSSB board from the CNC side. Just yank it out half an inch or so to detach it from the backplane. Try powering up again and looking for 'normal' machine functions. The problem could be in the CNC side. You can record the LED status on the CNC side. Most have a 7 segment LED on the Main board that will provide some guidance, in cases like this.

[enginepilot007]

that you kindly for your reply
I felt on my original diagnosis that the cnc's cpu failed.
the tech from Fanuc disagreed and said it was the main board on the panel I
I explained that I pulled the hssb board and the 7 segment diaplay stayed on 8, and that when I put the rotary switch on the hssb board to 2, the display blinks 3, which means hardware error.
Also I have replaced many cpu's on 180i controls over the years

many thanks

[cnc2149]

The blinking 3 of the Main PCB LED indicates CPU Interrupt or SRAM ECC Error. Most of the time, I've seen it be the SRAM. Restoring the SRAM image may bring this back to life.

You can try to put the HSSB rotary switch to posn 0 and power up in Maint Mode. If so, you can use the NCBOOT32 to restore the SRAM image, if you have it. Alternatively, you could remove the HSSB board, set the MTSW rotary switch to posn A and use the pushbutton to reload any SRAM image backup that you have. Procedure is covered in Appendix of 180i Maint Manual.

[enginepilot007]

thank you
at this point I have go go forward with the hssb/pci card install, as there is no panel I. Fanuc sent it to Japan.
Ok I will have to attempt to load the cnc screen display software then do as you suggest.

thank you very much

[cnc2149]

Forgot to mention that if you use the MTSW rotary switch restoration method, you would need to have the backup of the CNC SRAM image on a PCMCIA memory card. Install this card in the slot on the front of the Main PCB. Then you power up with the MTSW in posn A and use the pushbutton to load it into the CNC SRAM area. Takes a little practice to get the timing of the pushbutton just right, but it's the only thing you can do to restore SRAM when you do not have a display unit.

[enginepilot007]

Thank you for the advise
I wanted to sent the 180i control (single slot) to Fanuc for testing, to see if they can get it to boot. I used to do this sometimes with GE/Fanuc when I was not sure. I understand that that service in no longer available.
regards

[cnc2149]

GE Fanuc used to allow you to send the entire CNC in for repair. We would test it on the bench in the repair department with our own assortment of displays, etc and would even restore the SRAM software, if you had it. GE Fanuc dissolved and the service went away a short time ago. I'm not sure what FANUC America offers. They may dismantle the CNC, test each card individually, reassemble it and return it. In this case, it WOULD give you an SRAM parity alarm because the memory would have been lost during the process. The important thing would be to obtain a backup copy of the SRAM image.

[enginepilot007]

thank you
I kind of thought you were a ge/fanuc guy
I believe there was a sram backup on the hard drive. I will plug the hard drive into my
adapter case to usb and search for the sram

I thank you very much