Allen Bradley 8200 control

[gnmachine]

Well to make a long story short, I purchased a 1984 or so Hardinge Superslant 3 axis lathe, hoping to use it as a stepping stone for the next few years for our small shop. We had everything wired up properly and turned it on, had it working fine, it homed fine, spindle ran fine. We shut it down for the night and when we came back in the morning, the control program will not load and there are 2 error lights on in the computer area, one says RAM fail and one says Bubble fail. I have tried to reload the executive program into the machine but unfortunately I can't seem to get the tape reader to work. I have followed all instructions in the manual. Now I am at a point where I am thinking how far do I take it from here, do I try to get a repair person in and get the control working or do I try to get a new control via PC for this machine. I am not sure what to do, or really how much is involved to doing the new control. any help would be greatly appreciated, I am pretty new to CNC.

-Steve

[robertg991]

Steve,

I know this is not much help but,I'm really not a cnc type either, but I ran a couple of huge metal saws with this control probably 10 years ago and when I called the NC Techs they usually tried to replace the bubble memory from 1 machine to the other. There was a certain sequence they used to restart it and if you didn't go by that exact sequence it wouldn't start up. Eventually, they finally gave up after replacing some very costly electronics boards and eventually the machines were taken out of service. Tried to get the head guru's to replace with upgraded controls, but it would have been very expensive. Don't have a clue whether you should upgrade but I would imagine it would be quite expensive. Just my thoughts. One thing I do know is don't shut it down once you get it back up, if you do.

Bob Garner

[hornby chopper]

i have a allen-bradley slc 150 controller dose any one have info on what programs and what stepper motors it would drive. will it work for a plasma table

[Al_The_Man]

IIRC thats a legacy PLC, replaced by the Logix series, If so, it is not a motion controller or capable of interpolated moves.
You will need a programming unit and/or software to program.
Al.

[liston336]

Steve,
I worked on an (2) A&B 8200 as a maintenance tech. They were tied to burning machines. The memory was loaded via tape readers and was on 3 spools. I want to know does this sound remotely to what you have? If so there are a couple of options. First check your back-up battery(ies), Secondly if you can tell me the make of your tape reader. You can clean the reader head with a damp cloth. If you get the tapes loaded check on getting them changed to disc for a disc reader.