[Davey Boy]

Hello Everyone,

I have an MH600E and it had sat around for so long before I bought it that the battery is dead and the machine constants are gone.

I did get a floppy disk with "Parameters" written on it, but the machine doesn't have a drive and my computer doesn't recognize the disk format. My thought was to enter the constants I know via the console, but I can't seem to get the keystrokes right the enter the data.

My manual says there is a protection switch that has to be set to allow the constants to be entered manually, but I can't find any trace of such a switch. Would anyone know where this mystery switch is, or how to manually enter the parameters?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Davey Boy

[Davey Boy]

Something else that's a bit strange... the display shows an error "Io1" which according to my manual means there is no power to the console. The hydraulic button doesn't light up, but all the other buttons seem to work and the screen too, of course.

Thanks,
Davey Boy.

[Davey Boy]

Soooooooooooo,

Just to confirm, nobody knows where that mystery switch is that lets me input constants?

[thebodger]

the I01 message means the hydraulics and servos are not energized. Basically the machine is in emergency stop condition. Only the control is running. I don't know how well you know this system, so please don't think i'm belittling you here. just trying to help. first, to energize the system you need to press the hydraulic on press button and the clear keypad button within about .5 seconds.so hit the hydraulics button then the clear button. but before all this, if your constants are trashed, the machine will never enegize. look at the machine constants. it's the keypad button on your upper left marked CONST. if you see any constants with crazy values and it displays "incorrect" this means your canstants are trashed. they need to be corrected before you have any hope of going further to power this up. i will leave with this bit of info, before i get into deeper stuff. i know these machines quite well, as i am one of the origanal service thechs from the old ferro technique days back in the 1990's. post back, i'll follow this thread. also look at posts from a guy called "thebodger@roger" in this sub forum. i'm the same guy.

[Davey Boy]

Thank you very much for your reply.

I don't know this system well, at all. The constants are definitely trashed, as there are some which show crazy, incorrect values. As I noted previously, I do have a floppy with the parameters, but not a way to read it, or read them into the machine.

When the machine is powered up, the motors all seem to be energized, but I do understand that doesn't mean they will function properly. I see you too are in Canada. Do you still do service on these beasts?

Thanks again,
Davey Boy.

[thebodger]

Every set of constant that I have seen from a Phillips control is always a simple text file. Although the file may not have a .txt extension, it still is a text file. Can you try to open the file with notepad in Windows, and see what happens?

[Davey Boy]

I will give it a go.

There are 5 computers here, all without 3.5" drives. I'll have a friend look into it for me.

Thank you,
Davey Boy.

[uli12us]

You can try to read the diskette on a unix system. I wonder why, but a SGI computer could read all HD from apples, PC and maybe other systems.

The parameter switch should be somewhere in the electric cabinet.

[Davey Boy]

It looks like the floppy has been formatted on an older pre XP system and I get an error "no id address mark was found on the floppy". I've read that if an older system can be found, chances are good that the disk info can be recovered.

Time to browse through the electronic junkyard I guess.

I have gone through the cabinet but can't find anything that resembles a lockout switch for the constants. I was hoping that if I could get the constants I know input, that somehow the rest could be faked enough to get the machine going.

Thanks,
Davey Boy.

[thebodger]

Seems strange that message. I wonder if the floppy might be damaged, I hope not. By the way, what general area of Canada are you in?

[Davey Boy]

I too hope the disk is okay. Word on the net is Microsoft changed the floppy drivers around 2000ish and that's when this problem started. The older drivers didn't include a small data bit which is now required on current systems. Based on the equipment I saw in the shop where I bought the Maho, I suspect the shop computer was probably running an earlier Windows version with the older driver.

I'm just outside of Barrie, Ontario which is 45 minutes north of Toronto.

[thebodger]

You're just north of me. I'm in Mississauga, but the plant is in Brampton. I'll try to remember to get a picture of the constant switch you should be looking for. There are a group of 3 miniture toggle switches on a small angle iron thinggy in the electro-cabinet. They are ususally labeled 7S2, 19S1, and something I can't remember cause i never used it. However there is another way to access the constants. That is by setting constant "C80" to "N=1". then rebooting the control by pressing the "MANUAL" button. If your not getting anywhere with this, send me a P.M., and I'll give you a phone number that you can reach me from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm.

[Davey Boy]

You may have worked on this machine in the past... it came from RD Turning on Britannia Road.

Thanks for the info on the switches. I'll take a look in the morning and see what I can find. The C80 sounds like the way to go though.

Thank you very much and I will keep you posted!

Davey Boy

[thebodger]

It,s been almost 20 years since I was on the road doing service. Maybe I was, but I just can recall all the places. I was the only MAHO tech for all of eastern Canada in those days. We still have 3 of these old beasts in our shop. Two 600's 5 axis 523 control, and one 1000S 5 axis 432 control. they still run them 20 hours a day 5 days a week. We just sold a MH1000 to someone in Oakville, but that one needed too much money and time to fix up.

[Davey Boy]

I'll bet you don't miss life on the road. It can be hard on a fella.

The C80 to 1 did the trick! I input a bunch of the constants, but I can see there is certainly a need for the disk info. Some of the ones that showed up on the control weren't even listed in my manual?? I presume you set C80 back to zero when done?

I had to give it up for tonight... I live in the sticks (100 amp service) and my wife wanted to dry some clothes, so I had to give up the hydro!! I'll see what I can do with it in the morning.

Thanks a bunch!!

[uli12us]

which is 45 minutes north of Toronto.

With what, horse, car, or airplane. I don't know much about Canada, but watched some Tv-features about and they say, the normal transportmedium is a small airplane, like Cessna or similiar.

Somewhere I have a factorysealed Win95 cd with start diskette, thats far before 2000, or I can search for stoneaged Win 3.11 Diskettes, maybe I have even Dos 3.3 Diskettes, but I doubt, you can run those old parts on a modern computer.

[Davey Boy]

Sorry uli12us, I should have been more specific... since I don't have an airplane, not even a small one, or a horse, I based it upon highway time in my trusted Tacoma. Barrie is about 80km from Toronto.

I also have a Win95 disk... somewhere. There are a few "buy & sell" websites around here so I may look and see if anyone is cleaning out their basement and getting rid of an old box. After going through a few hundred constants and only guessing what the values should be, it seems a worthy investment of a couple of dollars.

[thebodger]

If you have a computer that will boot up from a USB port, then you came make a memory flash stick formated to DOS 6 work as your hard disk. I use this often for old software I sometimes need to run. Search the web, you will find how to do this.

[Davey Boy]

That seems like a doable solution. Does DOS6 have special traits?

[thebodger]

you need to make "C80" back to "N=0" to be able to run the machine. "C80" is the unlock or "key" constant for enabling the editing of machine constants. as far as DOS goes, it's a command line OS, there is no fancy GUI to it. you will need to find some old as dirt fart (like me) to help you learn it.