Temo, It can be a bit overwhelming but I have to say that I think that you you are doing quite well all things considering. Hang in there.

You know the prints that you have being posting. In the old days they were called by some as electrical ladder prints. They are called that because if you look at them from "a far" they resemble a ladder. Each horizontal line which are identified as an either as a line or a rung ( as in a ladder rung). The two long vertical outside lines on the print are often called the rails or sometimes the power rail. The output and power devices will be on the right side of the rails and the controlling devices will be on the left side of the rails. The power rail represent the supply voltage. That voltage could be 120, 220, 48, 24,12, volts. But it is only one supply voltage. On one page the rail may 120 volts. Only devices ( actual hardware) that have 120 volts wired to them will be shown. On another page the power rail may 24 VDC. And only devices that are powered by 24 VDC will be on that page. The electrical prints are used to show how everything is electrically interconnected. Those print shows an electrician or a tech how things are wired up( sorta) and how things are supposed to work. Please note my explaination is just a simplification and are explained in general terms to give you an idea of an electrical ladder.

Well with Ladder Logic they are sorted the same but they are defintely different. The print out is normally shown as a ladder. There are rails on the print. There are a bunch of " soft" input and output devices connected across the rails. Inputs are on the left side and outputs are on the right side. They are connected logically. Not electrically. This logic processing is done in the brains ( the CNC). They are a little more complicated. Ladder logic is a bit more harder to interpet and sometimes mistakes are made because people look at them as if they are electrical prints.

Clear as mudd? Sorry, I may not be explaining them that well. If you have access to the ladder logic and if you have a means to display them to us then we should be able to help explain to you what should be going on.

As Al has mentioned before the Ladder logic will tell us what the CNC is thinking and what it wants done. It tells the hardware what and when to do it.

Can you tell me where the old hard drive is? Also in your last photo, one of the screen shot suggests that there is some ladder info in your machine. Not sure if all of the info is there or if it is the correct one. But if you paid 1300 dollars for it from Siemens you should hope it is. You probably can call them on it. Asked them how you can tell. You should be able to get them to tell them if the ladder is on there. When they say yes then at that time you should asked them how you can verify it and how can you look at it ( display it). I think they will reveal that to you.

Also in the other photo can you tell us what shows up on the screen when you select Workstation Event Viewer? One more thing, on the Service menu sreen what is on the left side of the screen? In the photo I can only see part of the screen.

Sorry about all the questions. But you are ours eyes and ears. When I look at a machine problem. If it is not a simple fix. I like to "look around." I like to see what is working and what is not working. I like to see what is avaialble to us. I like to play with things. I am looking for clues.

Okay I leave you alone for now. Have a good weekend guys.

FanFan

PS It could be a little bit more than 10 years ago for Cincinnati. In another shop I was working on new Cincinnati Milacrons in the middle to later 1990's. Perhaps 1997 or 1998. They had A/B 8200 AT's on them. We did have Siemens drives those machines.