Need Help!- Milltronics Partner 4 w/ Centurion V controller

[RonRogers]

Acquired machine last year with many probs. Help from hear and my local electronics whiz tracked down several bad components and we got going with a couple of ultra simple parts(conversational programs). This has been a neglected project which I am now resuming.

Am now trying to program a more elaborate part. I've entered about 35 events. When I power up the machine and go to my program, I am finding unrelated events. I have already deleted old programs and have lots of storage space. When I open my new in-progress program, I attempt to go through event-by-event to review and confirm. I get to maybe the 15th event and a strange one appears,which I delete and/or edit. After a couple of "next event" moves, I lose my screen and get an error message (#100_ disc read error. cut power and repower). I then get back into the program a and it crashes again. The couple of smaller old programs are still OK and you can scroll through all their events_ no prob. For that reason, I hope my hard drive is still OK.
OR IS IT?

Anybody have any ideas? I can't see what I can be doing in the way of entry errors that could create these incidents. I am afraid it is a computer-related problem. (Bad hard drive?)

As always, any suggestions appreciated.
I am told a Centurion VII upgrade would be good but, being totally green in all this, I want to get control of the beast as is before getting involved with another devil I don't know.

[trevj1]

Have you spoken with the folks at Milltronics yet? Their online support has been really first-class.

You have one control upgrad before you go whole hog on a brand new controller.

They still support the Cent V -B (that's dash B) serial number controllers and can install a single board computer along with a bunch more memory, for just under $2K. You need to remove and send in the control box from in the back of the machine. They test your drive cards, install the new computer, test and return it.

The serial number is on the underside of the control box and if you are calling in to tech support or emailing them, it is useful to have that and the machine serial numbers in hand.

You have a hard drive? Mine does not. SimDisk only. Vibration is tough on a HD. You are pretty much shopping used on ebay for an HD that you can use on this era computer.

Anyhoo... Check your serial numbers, call tech support, or email them. They were really helpful when I needed the help.

The Cent 8 WOULD be good, but maybe more money than the machine is worth spending upon, given that you either have to be able to ship it to them, or pay the bills on having a fella come there and install it, if that is even possible. IIRC the Cent 7 upgrade was on the order of $8K, I don't imagine it gets cheaper...

Never programmed with the conversational.

Cheers
Trev

[Ben Colby]

I've never used the conversational programming, actually never more than glanced at it.
I would be curious if you or someone else could write some G-Code and see it the machine
can execute it, before spending a bunch of money on an upgrade.
Just my two cents

[RonRogers]

Originally Posted by Ben Colby I've never used the conversational programming, actually never more than glanced at it. I would be curious if you or someone else could write some G-Code and see it the machine can execute it, before spending a bunch of money on an upgrade. Just my two cents

Thanks, Ben.
An upgrade is not seriously being considered on balance of economics.
I am using Conversational programming because this is the beginning of my NC education and I want to walk before I run.

I am copying the entered program and then opening it with "Notebook". That shows me the G codes and I can edit out the bad events. However, I don't know how to then get the machine to read my altered program (which is still showing G codes). Can I just manually enter the G codes that are on my printout? That's lots more work but I would know I am in control.

On the control panel, I am able to go into my program and add more events but I have to avoid the last 10 events which are foreign to my program. It seems that the junk events want to stay at the end of my program(after event saying "end of program"). That scares me. I am afraid the machine will go bonkers at some point due to the junk info.

[RonRogers]

Originally Posted by trevj1 Have you spoken with the folks at Milltronics yet? Their online support has been really first-class. You have one control upgrad before you go whole hog on a brand new controller. They still support the Cent V -B (that's dash B) serial number controllers and can install a single board computer along with a bunch more memory, for just under $2K. You need to remove and send in the control box from in the back of the machine. They test your drive cards, install the new computer, test and return it. The serial number is on the underside of the control box and if you are calling in to tech support or emailing them, it is useful to have that and the machine serial numbers in hand. You have a hard drive? Mine does not. SimDisk only. Vibration is tough on a HD. You are pretty much shopping used on ebay for an HD that you can use on this era computer. Anyhoo... Check your serial numbers, call tech support, or email them. They were really helpful when I needed the help. The Cent 8 WOULD be good, but maybe more money than the machine is worth spending upon, given that you either have to be able to ship it to them, or pay the bills on having a fella come there and install it, if that is even possible. IIRC the Cent 7 upgrade was on the order of $8K, I don't imagine it gets cheaper... Never programmed with the conversational. Cheers Trev

Trev,

Thank you. The Milltronics folks were very helpful. Seems I probably caused the problem by powering down without escaping back to the main menu.

However, I now have about 10 "junk" events at the end of my program and can't get rid of them. As soon as I delete a couple, the screen then goes off again and I must start over. Also, when I am editing the program, I can advance OK but if I attempt to go to previous events, I find those events corrupted with coords. that I can't delete.

I am able to go in and add more events to the program but am afraid that the bad material at the end will foul things up if I attempt to run the program.

I don't know how to remove the bad events from the program. I even tried starting from scratch

[Ben Colby]

I have no idea how to clear a conversational program, but a G-code program is cleared
very easily. One of the GREEN buttons says "Clear Program". Push it and it will ask you
which program #. If it was program #1, you would type 1001 and hit enter.

[jpawelk]

RonRogers,
If your machine is running from a simdisk, reformatting it may solve your issue. Think of it as wiping your hard drive and starting fresh. Attached is a procedure to reformat your sram. Follow the instructions and go from there. Good luck to you!

[RonRogers]

Ben,
I am able to erase a program. Have already done that with several that were in machine before I got it. I also erased the program I am doing now and started over. However, I still have the problem with the last 9 or 10 events remaining. If I go forward into 1 of those, I get the program loss and must power up again. I have been able to progress in the program and add events, but the glitches remain.

If I copy my program to floppy, I can then read it with "Notepad". I can then delete events at end but now cannot convert it back from Notepad so the Controller will read it back into the machine.

[RonRogers]

Thank you. I will save that reformatting as a last resort. It should be noted that I have 2 smaller programs in the controller and they seem to be OK. I can enter them and scroll through all their events without encountering the shutdown glitch that I encounter on the latest program.

The reformatting at this time scares me.

I AM progressing and feeling more comfortable with the Conversational programming. Thanks to all you guys for the help. I'll keep plugging away and you'll hear from me again within a few days.

[sportybob]

Ron, my 2c worth. Some times data gets corrupted, reloading data into "corrupted space" nets you more corrupted data. Take the 2 minuts to do the reformatting, it could save you a lot of fustration.

Thunder storms and power surges and poor grounding can cause all sorts of problems in any computer system.

sporty bob

[RonRogers]

Originally Posted by sportybob Ron, my 2c worth. Some times data gets corrupted, reloading data into "corrupted space" nets you more corrupted data. Take the 2 minuts to do the reformatting, it could save you a lot of fustration. Thunder storms and power surges and poor grounding can cause all sorts of problems in any computer system. sporty bob

Bob (and others),

Thanks for the advice. I think I may have to plunge into the re-formatting as you suggest. This is a multi-pronged pain-in-the-butt because I am not a great computer user and I am also just getting my feet wet with CNC. I want to start off with the Conversational programming as it is a gentle transition from my manual operation experience.

Meantime, thanks to all for the help thus far.

Ron

[sportybob]

Hey Ron, It is not as hard as it sounds. during boot up look for a "count down" on the upper left portion of the screen, ie: 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 before it hits -1 press any key on the front panel. it will kick you to a DOS screen. select F2, reformat. select Y (yes) to all the screen inputs, when it ask to format another select N (no). it will reboot to the CNC software.

All that being said, hopefully you have a back up parameter disk.. you can then go yo F7 (prams) and select "load" (after inserting the "P-disk" into the floppy drive) it will load the parameters from the floppy.

If you don't have a "P-disk" then you will have to reload your machine parameters from the parameters list located in the manual that came with your machine. Then make a back of the P-disk for "next time".
C1 controls select program, files, save, arrow down to "parameters" select and save.
C5, C6, C7 select F7(prams), (save). it will "write a P-disk for you."

For all others, make sure you have a back up P-disk. It will save you time and fustration.

IE: reformat with a P-disk, 2 minuts, reformat with out a P-disk useing the P-list in the manual, 1 hour. with out a list from the manual .....? Call Milltronics service and ask for the file or list. 952-442-1401 YOU WILL NEED YOUR MACHINE SERIAL #. Always a good thing to have when you call. Just like ordering parts for your car, you need "make, model and year". In Milltronics speak, and most other MT mfg's it is the machine serial number that leads to answers.

Sportybob