Meldas M50 controlled Mill not working after restored Paramaters

[Xprez]

Leadwell VMC-25 Mill with Meldas M50

Lost paramaters few weeks back due to battery. Have replaced battery with new.

Have loaded back in all my backup files over serial cable for paramaters, trace data, common variables, tool data, main program, maintence files ect. formatted memory & initialised the controllers. I set the base paramaters and put all the paramater locks back on after I finished setting everything up. The subprogram 9001 for ATC Tool change was already in there so must have been captured in one of my backup files.

There are no custom macros to load as far as I am aware.

Loading of fixed cycles I am not sure about process or if I need to do it. Would think they have already been captured in above and/or already avaialble in the machine.

I was going to copy the ladder information from the data stored in ROM and copy it to RAM but ended up skipping this step as the ladder looks to have populated itself automatically in the RAM after I loaded back in the paramaters and at a high level looks identical to the ROM backup. Mechanically and electronically the machine appears to function correctly so I don't think the ladder is junk.

PLC is running

I havn't set the tool offsets so just left at defatult as I want to test out the machine with a program before I go any further and the offsets shouldn't really prevent me running a program.

I can move the axis on handle (X,Y,Z) and I can home the machine without issue.

So here's the problem - I load in a program which I know works and we have used before and I hit the cycle start button

The CRT display shows each line of code from the program being read but almost straight away I get an alarm but with no alarm code! which makes it hard to diagnose the issue. There is no movement from the axis and the display instally goes into a super laggy state where it's unresponsive to inputs, any button I press on the keypad takes about 15 seconds to take effect. I hit E-Stop which gives me some control back and I can clear the alarm.

Any ideas what could be causing such behaviour? Something I have missed in getting the machine back online after we lost the paramaters?
Thinking there is a setting or paramater I need to amend or something enabled/disabled that shouldn't be but not sure where to look. Have already spent days going through all the manuals and checking paramater settings.

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[servtech]

Leadwell VMC-25 Mill with Meldas M50

Lost paramaters few weeks back due to battery. Have replaced battery with new.

Have loaded back in all my backup files over serial cable for paramaters, trace data, common variables, tool data, main program, maintence files ect. formatted memory & initialised the controllers. I set the base paramaters and put all the paramater locks back on after I finished setting everything up. The subprogram 9001 for ATC Tool change was already in there so must have been captured in one of my backup files.

There are no custom macros to load as far as I am aware.

Loading of fixed cycles I am not sure about process or if I need to do it. Would think they have already been captured in above and/or already avaialble in the machine.

I was going to copy the ladder information from the data stored in ROM and copy it to RAM but ended up skipping this step as the ladder looks to have populated itself automatically in the RAM after I loaded back in the paramaters and at a high level looks identical to the ROM backup. Mechanically and electronically the machine appears to function correctly so I don't think the ladder is junk.

PLC is running

I havn't set the tool offsets so just left at defatult as I want to test out the machine with a program before I go any further and the offsets shouldn't really prevent me running a program.

I can move the axis on handle (X,Y,Z) and I can home the machine without issue.

So here's the problem - I load in a program which I know works and we have used before and I hit the cycle start button

The CRT display shows each line of code from the program being read but almost straight away I get an alarm but with no alarm code! which makes it hard to diagnose the issue. There is no movement from the axis and the display instally goes into a super laggy state where it's unresponsive to inputs, any button I press on the keypad takes about 15 seconds to take effect. I hit E-Stop which gives me some control back and I can clear the alarm.

Any ideas what could be causing such behaviour? Something I have missed in getting the machine back online after we lost the paramaters?
Thinking there is a setting or paramater I need to amend or something enabled/disabled that shouldn't be but not sure where to look. Have already spent days going through all the manuals and checking paramater settings.

Could be corruption by "hidden characters" in the program during reload of parameters and program data.
Try writing a short program in MDI and same in Auto and see what happens.
Reload a short clean program and try again.

[Xprez]

Yes I will try a small simple program for testing purposes and to cut down on variables but I don't think my program is corrupted as it wasn't part of the backed up programs I copied back into the machine. It's a seperate program I had stored elsewhere on my network drive which was only input into the machine once everything else was setup.

I also spoke to Mitsubshi and they want me to check my option paramaters

They told me how to find them in the machine and I have listed them below

[OPTION]
#
1 9E
2 FF
3 DF
4 7F
5 58
6 77
7 FF
8 F9

However I cannot find where the option paramaters are listed or mentioned in any of the manuals as these were setup by the machine builder I believe and should have been noted somewhere. Mitsubshi want me to locate them in the manual and let them know what they are so we can cross reference.

[MrMetric]

They are not listed anywhere. Those are a lens into the inner sanctum of the control, and will show how the control is intimately configured. You don't have any direct access to making changes there, but the parameters you are showing are used for changing things like the number of axis, interpolation capabilities, how simulate works, contouring, enabled memory, etc.

[Xprez]

I actually can change those option paramaters - I know someone with the same machine/controller and under his option paramaters they are all set to '00'

So I changed mine all to "00" out of interest but it didn't seem to change anything and I have the same problem

Going to check the PLC now...

Another weird thing I keep getting is an alarm "13.BATTERY DEFAULT"

It's a new battery and it's definately plugged into the connector of the control board at the back of the machine

[MrMetric]

may I ask how you changed them? Did you simply do a download, modify the ASCII, and then do an upload?

Does the m50 have an MC161-1 CPU board in it?

[Xprez]

Simply changed the option paramaters directly on the machine, it has data fields to allow you to do it and there was no data lock preventing me

This is the process for a Meldas M50 controller, I believe a M60 is similar but cannot speak for other Mitsubshi controllers

I'm quite sure that the MC-161 does not belong to the M50. I think it relates to controllers such as the M500. I say this as the initilisation procedure I tried to follow after I lost everything due battery failure actually related to a controller with the MC-161 card and the procedure was not releveant to my M50 and I could not find the MC-161 card in the back of my machine where the instructions said it should be.



To View/Edit Option Paramaters on Meldas M50
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Press Diag In/Out key and then scroll to the relevant page and press History

This will bring you to [OPERATION HISTORY] page which will show all your keyed inputs

Look at the top left of the screen

Set from On to Off by typing 'I' then press INPUT (note it is the letter I not the number 1)

Now press Tool/Param key and scroll to page with SETUP. Type 'Y' when it asks you yes or no

This will bring you to [BASE SPEC. PARAM] screen

Go to the next page which is page 2/8

Bottom right hand corner is paramater #1060

Those familiar with the M50 might recgonise this as the same paramater used to format and intiliase the RAM and set base paramaters but we arn't doing that in this case.

There are 3 brackets for input in the bottom left of the screen

#( ) DATA( ) ( )

Enter the below

#(1060) DATA(50) (M)

Then you have to press the INPUT button twice

If you get an error it's because you didn't set to off in first step e.g. wasn't set to "I" on the Operation History screen

Now make sure the next button you press is the TOOL PARA key

You should now see a screen as below which are your option paramaters - the values in italics will vary machine to machine as I beleive they were set by the machine builder.

[OPTION]
#
1 9E
2 FF
3 DF
4 7F
5 58
6 77
7 FF
8 F9

*** Take a photo of this screen *** before you do anything else incase you accidently change any of the data fields because in my experience these data fields are not referenced in the manuals or backed up somewhere I can easily reference so if you over write one you may not be able put back the original unless you have taken note (e.g. photo). I do not know what each option paramter relates to or what it controls with the machine as again there is nothing I can find referenced in any manuals but I am hoping to get some enlightment from Mitsubishi on this.

The data fields to change the paramaters are in the bottom left of screen and are self explanatory

#(para number) (your value)

If you exit this Option screen you cannot simply return to it by pressing the TOOL PARA key you have to repeat the step involving [BASE SPEC. PARAM] and re-input the values relating to #1060 and then press TOOL PARA key

Once you are done you will want to return to the [OPERATION HISTORY] screen to set it back to On

Press Diag In/Out key and then scroll to the relevant page and press History

This will bring you to [OPERATION HISTORY] page which will show all your keyed inputs

Set from Off to On by typing 'P' then press INPUT

[MrMetric]

Got it... Those are "M"achine parameters.... Mitsubishi publishes information on those and "U"ser parameters. However, there is a third set which they keep secret. Those are "S"ystem parameters.

[Xprez]

Got it... Those are "M"achine parameters.... Mitsubishi publishes information on those and "U"ser parameters. However, there is a third set which they keep secret. Those are "S"ystem parameters.

What controller are you using?

Beyond the original M50 manuals which I have (that are not particualy well written or easy to intepret) there isn't that much easily found info from Mitsubshi regarding the M50 beyond bits and pieces found online and on forums. I actually reference M60 documentation quite a bit when troubleshooting. The M50 is pretty old at this stage, I think it was introduced in the early 90's

Fortunately I know someone with the same machine and Mitsubshi are more than happy to help over the phone so I should be able to get this solved eventually. I'm going to get a Mitsubshi tech out in the new year if I can't solve it by tomorrow

[MrMetric]

I have an M3 control, which predates yours by a bit.

I may have led you a bit astray, and I apologize for that. I'm involved in several different conversations with people and I think I got yours mixed up, but not by much..... Yes, you *do* have access to configuration variables, or at least some of them. There are three levels, really, which is what I was alluding to in my last post. The User and Machine parameters are generally pretty well published. You can often use documentation from other versions of the control to "get close" too, if you don't have specific info for your control. It isn't perfect, but it works. The System parameters are the ones that are not published anywhere. That is definitely an area where Mitsubishi will not share information and, in fact, that is where they make you pay them to come out to your shop and enable features. That said, they are pretty reasonable, from what I understand, so it might benefit you to use them.

Many, if not all, of the parameters are actually stored in EEPROM so they will live through a complete battery failure. What *won't* live through a dead battery event is the static RAM, or SRAM. You will need to reformat the RAM which will then erase all programs, canned macros, etc. PLC is a bit of a mixed bag. Generally it is in EPROM, but I *think* that in some machines it can be RAM based.