[Geof]

I have attached a text file which is from copying ALL the programs on my TL2 onto a floppy.

Humor me; open it in Notepad and use the Find function to search through using O7; that is the letter O and the number 7.

Just keep clicking on Find Next and it will step down through all the programs numbered O7nnnnn.

Just make a mental note of the program description in parentheses alongside the number; for instance O70101 (1.000 DIA BALL).

Then tell me if you notice something funny.

[tobyaxis]

I'm not too sure this is it but there are (----) and 3/4 of the way through there was an error saying "Cannot Find O7".


BTW: what's with the M19 in a Lathe Program??

Oh and why are Program Numbers Missing???

[Geof]

That just means you have reached the end of the O7nnnn programs.

I will give you a hint: Use O70101 and the first time you click on Find Next you will go straight to that program; make a note of the program description and then click again.


EDIT:

M19 is spindle orientation.

[tobyaxis]

O70102 (BALL CLAMP KEEPER PIECES) ???????

What are you keeping??

[tobyaxis]

That just means you have reached the end of the O7nnnn programs.

I will give you a hint: Use O70101 and the first time you click on Find Next you will go straight to that program; make a note of the program description and then click again.


EDIT:

M19 is spindle orientation.

Thought that was only on the Mills, do you have live tooling on your TL2??

[Geof]

O70102 (BALL CLAMP KEEPER PIECES) ???????

What are you keeping??

You are not reading correctly. Follow my instructions to use O70101 and click Find Next twice; then carefully read the program number alongside (BALL CLAMP KEEPER PIECES); it is not O70102.

[Geof]

Thought that was only on the Mills, do you have live tooling on your TL2??

I use spindle orientation to line the chuck up for this: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89653

[tobyaxis]

I use spindle orientation to line the chuck up for this: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89653

I was just unaware of the option on a Lathe without Live Tooling.

Nice devise Geof. Has your back gotten any better??

[Geof]

.....Nice devise Geof. Has your back gotten any better??

Yes, once I stopped twisting myself awkwardly with a chuck handle. I can now go down to the driving range and hit 180 balls without a twinge.

[tobyaxis]

This is the weird thing I found. Line 5502 in notepad

O08998 (CLIPBOARD)
?2d2d ?2d2d ?2920 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Here
N3000 T414
N3001 G00 X3. Z1.
N3002 X2.48 Z-0.9 M08
N3003 M03 S800
N3004 G01 X2.3 Z-0.95 F0.005
N3005 Z-1.1
N3006 X2.2
N3007 X2.31 F0.1
N3008 Z-1.07
N3009 X2.24 Z-1.1 F0.003
N3010 X1.75 F0.005
N3011 X1.65 F0.001
N3012 G00 X5.
N3013 G00 Z5. M09
N3014 M99
N3015 (-<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Here
N1 G20 G40 G80 G99 G61 G97

[Geof]

This is the weird thing I found. Line 5502 in notepad.....

Yes those are the characters that caused the crash. I had to delete them before reloading the programs.

But they are not the really weird thing.

Copy this into the Find function in Notepad and tell me the program number that it belongs to:

(AQR TUBE MOUNT 7/8 BODY)

Then copy this and tell me the program number it belongs to:

(1.000 DIA BALL)

To see it best open the text file in two Notepad windows and put them side by side and do one Find in one and the other in the one beside it.

[chucker]

Ok I will bite how did you get 2 O70101 programs ?
O70101(1.00DIA BALL)
O70101(AQR TUBE MOUNT 7/8 BODY)

[Geof]

Ok I will bite how did you get 2 O70101 programs ?
O70101(1.00DIA BALL)
O70101(AQR TUBE MOUNT 7/8 BODY)

I do not have the foggiest idea.

There are seven O7nnnnn programs, O70101 through O70107 that have the same number but different contents. They are all valid programs which were written on the machine so they had to have different numbers at one point, and they had all been used to make parts.

There are also about sixty O9nnnnn programs that are totally duplicated, that is the same program number and the same content. Likewise these programs had been written on the machine and had all been used to make parts.

I downloaded the machine contents onto this floppy a few days ago because I got the corrupt program alarm while I was doing some editing. You are probably familiar with the recovery procedure when this happens; Download ALL to a floppy, Erase ALL and then reload the floppy file back into the machine.

Just before doing the Download ALL I noticed something strange and that was some program numbers I never created; they were O04nnnn which is a number sequence I never use. I couldn't open them because of the corrupt program alarm so I carried on with the download.

I did the Erase ALL successfully which leaves just O00000 in the machine and then started reloading. Naturally the controller asks if you want to overwrite O00000 and I pushed Y.

The reload continued and then stopped with the query "OVERWRITE O70101 YES/NO/ALL"; this really flummoxed me because there were no programs in the machine so I pressed N. The same thing happened for the other six O7nnnnn programs then sixty times when the O9nnnnn programs were reloading.

Then when the reload was complete I found that several of my O7nnnnn programs were missing; which really set me back because they represented a lot of work and I needed them.

This was when I started scanning through the floppy file in Notepad and it took a while before I clued in to what was there. It also took a while to erase the O9nnnnn duplicates and renumber the O7nnnnn programs so everything would reload correctly.

And as a say, I do not have the foggiest idea how it happened but you can see the contents of the floppy file, it did happen.

Haas-Apps where are you? Pull the attachment out and give it to your software wizards and have them tell me how that could happen.

[tobyaxis]

Have you called HAAS about this yet? You may get a faster response to a solution.

I have encountered something similar many years back on a CNC Control with weird characters like Strange Arrows, Ampersands, Commas, and Spiral Arcs in the Text File. These characters were in all the wrong places for Macros or Subs. The way it was found was through an old DOS Software called EDI. On the control these were invisible and the machine stopped then alarmed when these weird characters were read.

No one could explain the problem but I still feel it was some kind of virus.

Do you have any idea about the Program called (CLIPBOARD)?? I know Haas has a Copy & Paste Feature but is that what it is or is it a Notepad Edit that was transferred in??

The (?2d2d ?2d2d ?2920) has me a bit confused.

[Geof]

Other than my little note above to Haas-Apps I am not going to worry about contacting Haas because there is nothing they can do. I have retrieved all the programs and they are back in the machine.

The (?2d2d ?2d2d ?2920) does not have much significance. I have crashed the machine software many times and some of my employees have done the same thing. I think you are familiar with the Haas editor and know you can select a block of program, hit F1, go to the menu with the "copy selected block" option and hit write to copy it once or several times.

One way to almost guarantee a sofware crash is to copy a block with twenty or more lines several times; this leaves you with the last copy still selected and highlighted so you can press F1 again and then go to the "renumber lines" menu. If you now press write to select the renumber option it is almost certain to crash the software; I know this because they duplicated this one at Haas when I described the key sequence I had used to Wayne Reilly. My conclusion is that this is a buffer overflow error and the way to avoid it is to hit UNDO after completing an editing operation on a block of text and the re-select it for the next operation.

Whenever I have crashed the software I have always found lines of garbage character that have no place in a G-code program and have found that sometimes after copying everything to a floppy it is necessary to find the program that was being edited, search it for garbage and delete that before reloading everything otherwise it will crash again.

CLIPBOARD, program O08998 is what the Haas edit function uses as its clipboard. It is even possible to edit in O08998 itself; I often cut a section of program into it and then do a select/replace operation to change some coordinates, then paste it from the CLIPBOARD back into my program.

And it just dawned on me that it is possible that the funny duplications and replacements occurred because this time when I crashed the software I was working in program O08998.

[Haas_Apps]

Geof,
I have been out for a while and 'am still trying to catch up. Any time memory gets corrupted on anything the contents are not really reliable. In this case it looks like the pointer got all screwed up. On a PC it will generally just shut down. I will run this by our software department. By the way what software version is it - they will ask me for this information.

I do not have the foggiest idea.

There are seven O7nnnnn programs, O70101 through O70107 that have the same number but different contents. They are all valid programs which were written on the machine so they had to have different numbers at one point, and they had all been used to make parts.

There are also about sixty O9nnnnn programs that are totally duplicated, that is the same program number and the same content. Likewise these programs had been written on the machine and had all been used to make parts.

I downloaded the machine contents onto this floppy a few days ago because I got the corrupt program alarm while I was doing some editing. You are probably familiar with the recovery procedure when this happens; Download ALL to a floppy, Erase ALL and then reload the floppy file back into the machine.

Just before doing the Download ALL I noticed something strange and that was some program numbers I never created; they were O04nnnn which is a number sequence I never use. I couldn't open them because of the corrupt program alarm so I carried on with the download.

I did the Erase ALL successfully which leaves just O00000 in the machine and then started reloading. Naturally the controller asks if you want to overwrite O00000 and I pushed Y.

The reload continued and then stopped with the query "OVERWRITE O70101 YES/NO/ALL"; this really flummoxed me because there were no programs in the machine so I pressed N. The same thing happened for the other six O7nnnnn programs then sixty times when the O9nnnnn programs were reloading.

Then when the reload was complete I found that several of my O7nnnnn programs were missing; which really set me back because they represented a lot of work and I needed them.

This was when I started scanning through the floppy file in Notepad and it took a while before I clued in to what was there. It also took a while to erase the O9nnnnn duplicates and renumber the O7nnnnn programs so everything would reload correctly.

And as a say, I do not have the foggiest idea how it happened but you can see the contents of the floppy file, it did happen.

Haas-Apps where are you? Pull the attachment out and give it to your software wizards and have them tell me how that could happen.

[Geof]

I will get the software version tomorrow or Friday. I know it is not the original one for the machine because it was changed when I got the servo tool turret.

Incidentally all the programs I needed are there intact and everything seems to be running okay now; I will just have to slow down my frantic keystroking when I am editing.