Meldas-M3 Dynamyte DM4400M Problem

[Stonebarnfarm]

Hello, I am new to this site but have been interested in CNC for sometime. I was GIVEN a CNC mill but have not have had any luck getting it running. When I powered it up I could not get anything on the CRT. I have been toying with retrofitting it like the Bridgeport project (Stepper motors) that is in one of my machining magazines. Does anyone have any suggestion as to possibly getting the original machine running (possibly just reloading the paramenters?) or mayby using the existing AC servos and getting a different controller? Any thoughts would be welcome. Thanks David

[MetLHead]

David,

Do you get any red lights on the control boards? Not the operator console, but the computer inside the electrical cabinet.

If so, then the most likely culprit is a dead battery. There's two screws on the front of the computer that you need to take off to get at the battery, I think it's at the bottom of the power supply.

Before replacing the battery, try re-initializing the control. This should work if you've had the power on for a while and nothing else is wrong with the control. You should see a DIP switch on the front of the computer with 8 switches on it. With the CNC off, turn on switches 1, 3 and 8. Turn the CNC on and wait for the green led's on the CPU board to light up, takes just a few seconds. Turn the CNC off and turn the DIP switches back off. Turn the CNC on and watch the led's on the CPU board. If you get all green light's, then you are in good shape.

If you get this far, you may also need to check your machine parameters. I would look for any documentation that might show what the parameters should be set to.

Regards,
Scott

[Caprirs]

I've got two of these machines and Scott is probably right. The battery went dead and the MC161 card needs to be re-initialized. Contact Mitsubishi at 714.220.4796 and speak with them regarding the problem. They will walk you through the procedure or fax it to you.

After initializing the main card, you'll also have to reload the canned cycles, enter the tool change macro and possibly the machine parameters. If you need the tool change macro or machine parameters, I can email you them to you.

I highly doubt you'll get a retrofit that will outperform the control on that machine. It will rigid tap at 2000rpm, rapid traverse at 500ipm, 5hp 10,000rpm spindle, and coutour at 200ipm.

[Stonebarnfarm]

Scott, Yes I do get lights on the board marked MC1619-1. There are two horizontal lights (both red) then below the right light there are two vertical lights ( both green) and finally there are two more horizontal lights ( both red) All these lights are located around a small toggle switch. The battery was dead as I only had .1 VDC on it. By the time I had to shut down, I had 1.86 VDC. I tried the procedure that you wrote of but the lights did not change to all green. I shut off the machine at the source but I can shut it off at another small toggle switch located on a board marked PD19A. Is the procedure you wrote of the same procedure that CAPRIRS is referring to from Mitsubishi for re-initializing the MC161 Card? I do have a sheet with all the parameters on it but am kind of at a stand still. Any additional thoughts as to what I can do? Thanks Again David

[MetLHead]

David,

The initialization procedure is the same, but there's more to it than what I described. The complete procedure, like Caprirs said, also involves reformatting the program memory and reloading the canned cycles and parameters. I gave you the short version because until you get the screen back up, the rest is pointless.

The battery should be 3.6VDC, so it's possible that there just isn't enough voltage to get the control to come back up. I'll look tomorrow and see if I have the initialization procedure somewhere. If I can find it, I'll post it here. It sounds to me like you need to replace the battery before going any further.

As you noticed, the switch on the power supply (PD19A) does the same thing as the control on/off switches on the operator console. I think the toggle switch on the MC161 card is a reset switch.

Regards,
Scott

[Caprirs]

My recollection was:

- DIP switches 1,3 & 5 got switched on
- then power on the control for 30 seconds
- shut down
- flip the switches back to off
- power back up again

Once you can get a screen at the front, there's a sequence to go through to format the memory, reload the canned cycles, initalize the ATC, re-load the tool change marco.

I certainly have a feeble memory on that so that's why I recommended calling the guys at Mitsubishi. I used to work for Dyna about 7 years ago but I can't remember some of the procedures. The number I listed above is to the office in SoCal.

Get the machine working and it's worth $12K-$15K.

[Stonebarnfarm]

OK, So far so good. 1,3,5 dip switches procedure worked and I have a screen. I jogged all three axis and everything moved just fine. I called Mr Mitsubishi and he told me to load and save a small program to see if the memory needs to be reformated. Does anyone have a shortened program entry procedure? By the way, Thanks for all the help, I have been messing with this thing for about a year on and off getting more and more frustrated all the way. Mr Mitsubishi said that I was about 90% there.

David

[Caprirs]

You can enter a program by:

- pressing the Program/IN-OUT button at the top of the keypad
- press EDIT softkey at the bottom of the screen
- press PROGRAM softkey
- enter a program number (1-7999) and then press the green INPUT key
- type in text for a program like G0 G40 G90. End each line of code with the EOB (end of block) button on the keypad. The control does not complete the entry until the INPUT key is pressed.

Now you should be able to shut down and re-start to see if the program was retained. Upon power up, go back to PROGRAM/IN-OUT and press the softkey at the bottom of the screen marked FILE. Your new program should be there. If not, you have more procedures to go through to format the memory and reload the canned cycles.

[Stonebarnfarm]

Thanks for all the help. I got it to accept programs and entered in the tool change sub. and that is working fine. I am now working on the DNC.

Thanks Again.

[Stonebarnfarm]

Can anyone help with cable pinouts and port configurations for DNC on a Mitsubishi Meldas M3 control ? Any thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks

[Caprirs]

It should work with a null modem cable. I'll see if I can find the pinouts that Dyna recommends.

[Caprirs]

Here's my setup:

RS-232 Communication Cable for CTS/RTS protocol.

CNC Side(25 Pin) External Device (9 Pin)

RD 3 <-------------------------------------- 3 TD
TD 2 --------------------------------------> 2 RD
GND 7 --------------------------------------- 5 GND
RTS 4 --------------------------------------> 8 CTS
CTS 5 <-------------------------------------- 7 RTS
SHD | |------------------------------------ SHD


CNC Side(25 Pin) External Device (25 Pin)

RD 3 <-------------------------------------- 2 TD
TD 2 --------------------------------------> 3 RD
GND 7 <-------------------------------------- 7 GND
RTS 4 --------------------------------------> 5 CTS
CTS 5 <-------------------------------------- 4 RTS
SHD | |------------------------------------ SHD

Your machine should have two RS-232 25 pin ports. Port 1 is on the side of the front control console. Port 0 is on the side of the power cabinet. Whenever trying to communicate with the machine, check to be sure the machine is trying to use the port your cable is plugged into. The settings listed below assume using Port 0 on the back cabinet.

I use Windows Hyperterminal to transfer programs back and forth. The settings for Hyperterminal are:

Baud 19200
Data bits 7
Parity even
Stop bits 2
Flow control Xon/Xoff

I also had to play with the ASCII config stuff to control the line feed/carraige return stuff.


On the Dyna, go to TOOL/PARAM and press the MENU soft key at the bottom of the screen twice, then press I/O PAR.

First screen, you only care about the first three lines:

# Port Device
1 Data in 0 0 XON (don't worry about the "XON" part yet)
2 Data out 0 0 XON
3 NC Running 0 1 DNC

Press the NEXT button below the screen to get second page of parameters and set as follows:
# <0> <1> <2> <3> <4>
1 Device name XON DNC
2 Baud 0 1 (not in the Mits books, but baud 0 = 19200)
3 Stop bit 3 3
4 Parity eff 0 0
5 Even Parity 0 0
6 Char length 3 3
...
7-10 set to 0
...
11 Handshake 3 1
12 DC code par 1 0

Press NEXT to get third parameter screen:

# <0><1>
1
2 CR output 1 1


That's how my machines are setup and they work fine for transfering programs and parameters. I have not tried to run a program in the DNC mode yet because I haven't had a file larger than 64K.