Need bmc20 ultimax II help

[regina]

Hi, after a season of neglect, I am back trying to get my hurco running. It has developed a new problem. When I calibrate, the Z gives a nonsensical - number in the machine value and ******* in the part value. The tool change height is hosed up too. I can jog the Z fine however. I am running the 3d pkg v7.24. I suspect the Dallas ram has gone partially Tits up and have 4 new ones on order. What is stored on those rams and how can I recover anything that has survived, ie parameters, screw maps etc? Also how to I access and edit the machine parameters and tool change height? I have searched the forums and tried some of the enter xxx enter stuff but all of that seemed to be for v8 and newer and it didn't work?
Thanks in advance!

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[regina]

Update the chips came in, I installed them and fist got a z servo error, on restarting I got a "disagree" signal, and on the third time I just got a blinking cursor. Put old chips back still just a blinking cursor No boot, no screens, no nothing. 1000% worse. Completely ****ed. Probably have to scrap the whole control unless someone has any ideas.

[gcude]

What's the temperature where you are? I have to put a heater (or 2) in my control cabinets this time of year to pre-heat the electronics before I can even think about powering mine up. My BMC-20 does not stay on all the time and unless I preheat the cabinets up, I have to wait 30-45 minutes and power off and on a couple of times before I boot up successfully. If temps are above 50 in my shop, I can just power up and go without heating up the cabinets.

[regina]

It is about 40 in the shop. We keep it heated above freezing to try to ward off rust. It was booting fine today before I messed with the memory board so it is not a temp thing. I took precautions, but maybe the board got ESD zapped anyhow. I'm at a loss.
Thanks for trying though.

[gcude]

Double check to make sure you plugged your cable ends back onto the right connections on the boards. Yes, I plugged mine incorrectly after pulling cards for cleaning after I got my mill.

[regina]

Nope. I didn't remove any cables. Just the memory board which has no cables. Tomorrow after I cool down I may pull it back out, take it to an esd safe bench and clean and reseat all the chips.
I don't have much hope though. So frustrating, I was so close to having a working control and now it's ****

[regina]

Reseated all socketed chips, cleaned edge connectors, and reinstalled card.
No change. Just a blinking cursor in the lower left hand corner. No boot.

[regina]

Sent all the boards off to midwest. Came back, he said the dip switches on the personality board must have got disturbed when messing around with the memory board. Did the battery conversion route and got rid of the Dallas. I'm going to try everything out tonight. Wish me luck. I also purchaced a spare memory board from Ebay but the Eproms are for a KMP and I need them for a BMC. Anyone who want s to swap proms, let me know. Or is anyone has the data on the prom programs, I could burn another set.

[regina]

Ok, back on the horse. I soldered in new Li batteries, installed the cards back from Midwest, and it is alive. Had to reset the tool change height using the code and dip switches on the personality board. The machine seems to be working properly. Checksum error is gone. I can calibrate all the axis, warm up, and park the machine and it is preforming tool changes. Now I am trying to upload NC files to the machine. It has the round amphenol connectors on the machine. I ordered the mating connector and made up an adapter cable to db9. After starting and calibrating the machine, I switch to Auxiliary screen, NC editor. Then select configure port. Port 1, 9600 baud ,8, even, 1 and xon/xoff. Then I select upload. The control says "ready to receive"
Using a lapop, I am atempting to connect via the serial port using hyperterminal in XP. I found a sample program of hurco basic g code, and saved it in notepad as an .HNC file
Opening hyperterminal, I open new connection, com1 , 9600,8,even,1 and xon/xoff. It says connected and begins timing. Then I click the send icon, select the hurco1.hnc file from the folder on the desktop. it then gives me the protocol options of xmodem zmodem w/ backup, etc etc. What do I select? No matter what \i select it just seems to time out and the control never recieves anything. \\laptop says no response from remote system. What am i doing wrong?

[Scrambled1]

Regina-if you find a cure for the communication issue, can you post the fix? My md3 was communicating with my desktop. I was able to use sheetcam to drip feed programs to the mill. All was going good, until I had a board replaced. Now no luck. I usually use conversational programming, but I need to get it drip feeding again.

Steve


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[regina]

Will do! When yours did work, What procedure did you use? What card did you change that made it not work afterwards?

[Scrambled1]

Regina-

Since we use the Hurco as a glorified drill press most of the time, we just use conversational programming. When I first got the mill, I was able to use Sheetcam to generate G-code and drip it to the mill. Everything worked great. I was able to do some fancy engraving. These files were large, so I know drip feed was working.

We got busy in the shop, so it was back to conventional programming.

At some point, the mill went down. We had several problems, so I am not sure what caused it to stop working.

We had to replace the VFD. I am sure that had nothing to do with it.
We had to replace the memory chips.
We replaced the main board- I think this is what caused the problems
I think we replaced the dual axis board.

I have been wanting to get it engraving again, it is not a priority, but something I need sometime.

If you have any questions just ask.


Steve

[Scrambled1]

Any update?


Steve


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[regina]

Ok, Update. Yes things move slowly around here. Spoke with Steve Artz and had to switch a wire on my cable. Afterwards, I was able to transfer a file using hyperterminal. 9600 baud 7 bit word
1 stop bit, even parity, xon/xoff (level 2). I had to use transfer "a text file" within hyperterminal for it to work. The first line of the program was a little messed up and it would not run, so still have a couple bugs to work out, but at least I successfully transferred a file !

[Scrambled1]

Who is Steve Artz? Do you have a phone number or email address?


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[regina]

He is one of the techs at the hurco service department. 1800 638 1849 and ask for him

[Scrambled1]

Thanks


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[Scrambled1]

Regina-

I think I have a bad port 2. I was able to connect to the Port 1, so for now I can load G code to the Hurco.

I have been trying to make changes to my Post Processor. Is there a way to get comments loaded into the Hurco's G code?

Right now I have it setup like this---- (commentXXXXXXX) but I get errors when I try to run the program. If I remove the (comment) all together everything works.


any ideas.


Thanks for the help.


Steve

[kabdelwahid]

Regina here mentioned the blinking cursor and the dip switches on the Hurco personality board. then you said you fixed it but never how it got fixed. I am facing exactly the same problem and hoped you could explain what exactly you did then? just changed my Dallas rams with new Dallas ones and the cursor appeared when booting up. Just in case I leave the personality board out the system boots up correctly

[kabdelwahid]

figured it out. problem was in the dip switches on the personality board.