Fanuc 11M Helical Interpolation

[MrMagooo]

Just bought older Hitachi-Seiki with Fanuc 11-M controller. Was hoping one of you gurus could help me find parameters that enable helical interpolation.

[Al_The_Man]

There is a remote possibility it is the same as the 16m 9930 bit#3=1 (xxxx1xxx).
Al.

[Dan Fritz]

It's 9100, bit #2 (the 3rd bit from the right). Changing an option parameter on the 11M is a bit tricky though.

I'm going from memory here, but this should get you close:

Turn off the control
Hold the minus (-) and the decimal (.) keys in at the same time
Turn on the control
A 6-item menu will appear
Enter the number "99", then press INPUT (99 is NOT in the menu)
The control will ask you how many axes you have with "AXIS ?"
Enter "3" if this is a 3-axis mill, "4" if you have a 4th axis, then INPUT
The prompt "OPTION 01" will appear (this corresponds to parameter 9100)
You enter a HEXADECIMAL number from "00" to "FF" and press INPUT
The next prompt "OPTION 02" will appear (this is parameter 9101)
Press INPUT many times until you step through all the option parameters. The original 6-item menu will appear
Press "6" then INPUT to exit the menu and the control will start normally.

Note: You will have to enter the proper hex number at the "OPTION 01" prompt to add the single bit at bit position #2. For example, if all the other bits of parameter 9100 are now zero (unlikely), you will enter the hex number "04", which is: 00000100. If some other bits are turned on now, you will have to just add this bit for Helical and enter that hex number. for example:

00000001 + 00000100 = 00000101 = hex 05
00000011 + 00000100 = 00000111 = hex 07
00001011 + 00000100 = 00001111 = hex 0F
(etc.)

Once you enter the proper hex number in OPTION 01, just blow past the rest of the option numbers by pressing INPUT, then exit the menu.

NOTE: You may want to play it safe and RECORD all your parameters, programs, tool offsets, etc. on a PC with some DNC software before doing this. You could write them all down manually, but this will take month out of your life. If something should go wrong while entering option parameters, you can really screw up this control.

[MrMagooo]

Dan Fritz,
Thank You Sir for this info, although it seems quite a bit more elaborate procedure than I would have expected. I will have to consider the risk of ruining the control, before attempting. You mention backing up parameters, could you explain procedure for doing so ?. I seem to recall that P-9999, would send all.