Supermax KMC-40 w/MicroPath Series 40 control

[Verell]

... The active memory is used for anything that may be changing while the machine is running... like...
Current postition of axies (in encoder counts), Spindle speed and wheather it is on or off, Pointer to the address in active memory containing the current block of code being executed, and lots more. Part of the active memory will be reloaded when you power on the controler. More will be filled when you transfer a program to it. And some will be altered when you home an axis.


Part of the reason for the battery backup may be so that you can stop at the end of the day, turn off the machine, and come back the next day and find it still knows where it is. If the 1992 vintage board used EEPROM for parameter storage then yours probably does too, or at least something that does not require a battery to retain it's values.

There are utilities to allow you to read the parameters, and a cursory look at a few will tell you if they are intact.

Steve

Thanks Steve,
That's a BIG help. It's what I was hoping the active memory was typically used for.

Sounds like there's a good chance that the controller + PMAC firmware together should be able to deal with the active memory not being preserved. I've got a pair of batteries on order, but am going to proceed with check-out.

Any suggestion as to the image names for those active memory parameter display utilities so I can see if they're on the controller's Win95 C: drive?

Are they likely to be DOS based as there aren't any utility icons that show up in the program manager MicroPath window with the controller program's icon.

Next step is to power up the servo system as well as the controller & see how far I can get.

BTW, my background is computer systems design, electrical & logic during the 1970s, then many years of designing/writing kernel mode code for the VMS operating system.

I know my way around computers in general. I just don't have the specific info I need to help me get going on this system.

[vger]

Verell,

Sounds like you got into computers about the same time I did. My first programing experiance was with a Bendix computer (used on the F-15 and the first Space Shuttles) using the front panel. You know... toggle in the address in binary, toggle in the instruction in binary, hit load button, address increments, toggle in the next instruction/data..... and so on.

There is one jumper on the PMAC you might look at. Jumper E51 determins where the pmac loads the parameters from. And it differs in it's setting based on card version. The NON default setting is ON for the PMAC Lite. If it's in the non default setting then it loads the factory default parameter settings from ROM rather than the machine specific settings from EEPROM.

Ok, the utilities, take a look for a DOS executable named PS.EXE . Pretty intuitive and starts you up in a tutor mode. It should let you do all the damage you want to do May be in a sub folder /bin/baldor not sure.

You may have it pretty easy, I have to reprogram everything in mine because I'm using different motors than the robotic system it came out of.

Steve

PS my card has

P1.5L
V1.16G
DELTA TAU
08-24-99

on the PROM. And no battery on board.

[Verell]

..You know... toggle in the address in binary, toggle in the instruction in binary, hit load button, address increments, toggle in the next instruction/data..... and so on...

Been There, Done that, was a DEC PDP-8 in SMU's semiconductor research lab in 1968-1969. In 1970 I graduated & went to work for DEC in their Industrial Products group working on the PDP-14 - the FIRST PLC!

...

Ok, the utilities, take a look for a DOS executable named PS.EXE .

...

P1.5L
V1.16G
DELTA TAU
08-24-99

Thanks for the E51 & PS.EXE info, will look for it this evening.

The monitor on my controller is on it's last legs, I can't read the DOS text. The controller window is usable but not exactly sharp. I've got to lug one up from the basement & find some place for it to sit untill I can replace the one in the controller.

Was surprised that your firmware was only 1 rev. higher than mine while being 5 years newer. I'm guessing that implies the firmware's been VERY stable!

[Verell]

I'm trying to ensure I understand & have cleanly disabled the 3 phase spindle control subsystem before I apply 220VAC to 2 of the 3 phases to power the controller & servos.

Things were looking pretty good, Identified 2 NO relays that both have the 3 phases in, & their outputs are connected together, however, Phases 1 & 3 of the output of one contactor are wired to Phases 3 & 1 of the other contactor. Obviously spindle rotation will be fwd or reverse depending on which contactor is selected.

There's a 4th contact on the fwd & reverse relays, and a pair of contacts sandwitched in between them. I suspect these are wired to avoid simultaneously enabling the FWD & REV contactors.

There's an adjustable overload relay built onto the output of the fwd & reverse relays. Thought it was a timer, but some research revealed it's purpose.
All well & to be expected.

Traced the switched phase wires over to a terminal block where they connect to the motor cord's 3 phases.

However, there are 3 light gage wires also connected to the terminal block. Haven't figured out where they go/what they do yet. PITA as they go into a wiring channel & I can't find where they emerge...

A wiring diagram of the spindle power subsystem would be great to have about now!!!

[Verell]

Finished the 220V hookup. Disconnected the 3 phase wires that were the input to the motor control contactors.

Took a deep breath & pushed the START button. Not much happened. Controller didn't power up... Some quick troubleshooting revealed that while I'd reconnected the controller hot line that the PO had disconnected to use a dedicated 110V line for the controller, I'd overlooked that he'd also disconnected the neutral line as well. Wire was buried right next to the terminal it had been removed from, capped off with a twist insulator.

Hooked up wire & controller PC powered up. However, servo subsystem wasn't powered up. Accidently discovered that pressing the START button a 2nd time caused the servo system to power up!!!

Tried the JOG button on all 3 axis. X-axis servo started very slowly & quietly drifting to the right. Nothing I could do changed the drift. Couldn't get Y or Z axis to respond at all(sigh). Noticed that the X & Z axis servo amps have their green 'OK' LED lit, but the Y axis amp doesn't.

These symptoms match what I was told was the behavior when I bought it, so I think I'm now back to where the seller described the system.

I tried the PMAC reset button. It got the controller Windows application unhappy, had to stop & restart it. Nothing else changed.

I'm going to have to see if the windows system has that PS.exe somewhere. It should tell me if the PC is talking to the PMAC which will be the 1st big step. Would have been nice if the PMAC had some LEDs indicating it was responding to the PC, and some other useful things such as X, Y, Z, etc. servos active...

The controller's X position display remained zeros while the servo was drifting. Either the servo's encoder isn't working, or else the signals aren't getting passed back to the PC for display.

My suspicion is that it's a problem common to all 3 axes, either the PMAC controller, or else a common power problem.

Guess I'll start by looking to see if the servo's phase encoders are producing pulses. Now just where did I put my Tektronix logic probe??? & will it still be good after 30+ years???

[Verell]

Thanks to GOOGLE, I found an instruction manual for MIT students on how to use the mill's MicroPath controller & printed it out:
http://www.media.mit.edu/physics/ped...-tutorial.html

GOOD NEWS:
RTFM always helps. In this case, there's a fairly complex (& IMHO non-intuitive) startup sequence that must be followed to get the Windows control program to come up synchronized with the PMAC machine control board.

Among other things:
"You start by setting the EMERGENCY STOP which locks down" BEFORE pressing the controller START button!!! At a certain point further on, you pull out the EMERGENCY STOP & press the START button a 2nd time!!! Bizzare to say the least!

Anyway, THINGS STARTED WORKING when I followed it!!!

At that point, the X,Y,&Z position displays showed something other than 0s & when I tried to manually change the X or Z position by hand, the servo motor gave me heavy resistance, and if I managed to overcome the resistance momentarily, the servo would immediately restore the original position.

Next I successfully followed the procedure for setting the machine's zero reference position. This involved using the JOG (manual move under power) knob to line up reference marks on the spindle (Z-axis), and also the X-axis(table left-right position). There's a LOW-MED-HIGH speed control for jogging, as well as a dial for fine adjusting within the selected range. I started with low speed jogging, then tried medium & high. Pretty impressive to see that big table zipping left & right!

Anyway, once I had X & Z zeroed, I moved to the procedure for actually using the JOG feature. You can select JOG distances of 0.0001" to 1.0000", and the table (or spindle) will move the specified distance, at the dialed in speed!!!

This tells me that an extremely high % of the control systeim is working!!!

Y is "motionally challenged"
Notice I haven't mentioned using the Y axis. This is because the Y axis servo driver's READY light is OFF. The Y axis knob can be easily moved by hand. Not a surprise as I was told about the Y axis READY problem when I bought the mill. Still, troubleshooting a single servo loop is a lot less daunting than not having any of the servos working!!!

BOTTOM LINE:
I believe that once I find & fix the Y axis READY problem, I'll have a working machine!!! Hopefully the Y axis problem will turn out to be something like a bad connection, or easily locatable component...


More good news: helixcnc sent me eMAIL today saying that he'll have a set of manuals & prints for me later this week. The set was 'too thick to send by mail'!!!

I'm having trouble figuring out how the spindle speed control works, or if the only control is fwd & reverse & the manual speed. Hopefully the prints will make this clear. Once I understand it, I'll be able to hook up the VFD/phase converter to run the spindle!!

I'm getting really psyched up to say the least.

[Verell]

Went out after supper & the specific distance eg; 1.0000" to 0.0001" jogs are not working. Left them working when I came in to fix supper.
Went completely thru the startup & setup 3-4 times & just couldn't get them to work. Jogs holding the JOG dial down do work. Go figure... I must be doing something slightly different but darned if I know what I'm skipping. It's also possible that this is the 'the controller only comes up properly every 5th or 6th time' historic problem(sigh).

Tomorrow I'm going to install the new CMOS batteries in the PMAC. Can't hurt, might help.

Also, I'm going to read up on the servo amplifiers and see why the Y axis servo amplifier's READY light is staying off.

[Verell]

I just got eMAIL from Tom saying he was able to track down copies of a full set of prints & the operator's manual for my mill!!!

This great post-sale follow-up service is an example of the service Helix Automation provides. You'll never regret buying from them, or having them service your CNC equipment!!

They're at:
http://www.helixcnc.com/

[Verell]

Unplugged the CMOS battery to install a new one following the procedure on the PMAC web site.

New battery's pins were too short!!! Measured the old battery with a voltmeter. It tested good so I reinstalled it.

Now the windows control program reports a fatal error immediately on startup. Also, the RED LED on the PMAC is now ON.

SWAG is that I've lost something important from the CMOS memory. I sure hope the manual tells how to reload the CMOS & that that's the problem!

[Verell]

Called Delta Tau tech support. Either the battery backup memory's contents are garbage & causing trouble, or else the board needs repair. They reccommended on making sure I've got backup copies of all the setup files, then changing E51 which should let the PC reload the PMAC's memory from a file. If that doesn't work, then the module's got a hardware problem.

I seem to have the necessary DOS based tools (PE.EXE & PS.EXE) to dump & reload memory. However, I don't have documentation for them. Does anyone have mid 1990s vintage user's guides for these???

I've got a 14" LCD monitor coming to replace the original one as I can't read DOS text on it.

I also have a flash card to IDE adapter coming so I can backup the hard drive before I go poking around further.

[Verell]

Bought a 14" Dell LCD monitor on eBAY as the CRT is gone on the one in the controller. Waited 10 days for it & it came in DOA - backlight was dead. Luckily the guy took my word & refunded my $$. Wanted me to pay to ship it back tho, $30 cause it was a 25 lb 1U KBM setup. I sent back eMAIL saying I needed a shipping co # to charge it to or it was coming back COD. - Why shold I pay return shipping for a defective item?

Got lucky, found a 14" COMPAQ LCD in CT, paid monday PM, it arrived this AM. Hooked it up & was in business, w/the cable from my monitor. It didn't come with a monitor cable, so need to make a 20 mile round trip to the nearest radio shack.

Received the flash card to IDE drive connectors adapter. Reformatted it /S and then Xcopied everything from the mill's C: drive to it, and also to a directory on my main PC. Connected it to the PC, had the BIOS configure it as the C: driv, & viola!! Win3.1 booted very fast!

You might say it came up in a flash. ;^)

This is really slick as I can just unplug the flash card & sneaker net it over to my main PC for analysis or editing!

Now that I had copies of everything, I installed the PMAC's E51 jumper, brought up the PMAC Executive (PE).

PE came up & reported it found a PMAC at the expected bus address!!!! Great news, at least now the PC & PMAC are communicating!

Dumped a backup copy of the PMAC's RAM to a file. Took a look at the backup file I made. Hard to tell if it was junk or not, it sort of seemed to make sense, but I just couldn't be sure.

Next I tried to verify the contents of the PMAC's memory with the various configuration files I found on the C: drive.

Memory doesn't come close to matching any of them. I wish the PC's clock battery hadn't died as I'd be more inclined to believe the dates on the configuration files...

I'm just going to have to dig into the various configuration files & try to make enough sense of them for me to decide which is the most recent. Then store it into the PMAC & see if that makes it work again.

Haven't given up hope on the PMAC yet, altho if one came up on eBAY at a reasonable price, I'd go for it just in case.

Also, the $!%^#$ trackball on the controller mostly doesn't work. I'm going to pull it out & see if I can't clean up the mechanism & get it more usable. Using DOS hot keys to navigate the screen is a PITA!

[vger]

Verell,
Good to hear you got the monitor straightened out. I was browsing through the files on machine and found a couple of text files that I believe relate to the PE. Don't know if they will help you or if you have them or not, but here they are anyway.

Steve