[njohns98]

Hello,

I have been working with a Cincinnati Milacron Arrow 1000 with Acramatic 2100 control for a few months now. Machine works great and runs smooth. A few days ago while cleaning out chips, I accidentally jogged it into the Y limit switch before alignment. It through the standard fault and turned off the drives. When trying to turn it back on to move it off the switch, it faulted a few more times and then wouldn't even attempt to turn the drives on (the software also froze up and I couldn't navigate to different screens).

I decided to fully shut down the machine and manually move it off the limit switch. When turning back on, it now fails the startup diagnostics for the Bridge Board (RT), Conv. Servo, High Density I/O, Pendant/Panel (MSL), and Realtime Processor.

During the diagnostic there are popups that say:

[S_CURPOS_DSP[0]]. Value Size is Zero
Application startup timeout. The exe name is CNC.EXE
[S_CURPOS_PGM[0]]. Value Size is Zero
Application startup timeout. The exe name is RAP.EXE


What I have tried so far:

Reseated all of the cards connected to the Bridge Board
After the machine is on, the "Real Time Fail" and "Workstation Fail" LEDs are illuminated on the Bridge Board


This has happened once before a month ago when the air supply shut off while it was running. I couldn't get it to boot up again, went home for the weekend, then it started up with no issues on Monday. I have seen only two threads about similar problems, but they occurred when powering on the machine after a long period of no use. I also have around 15 manuals for the machine and the different hardware, but haven't found anything useful in them.

Just to summarize, the machine was running fine, ran into a fault, froze up, and now won't bootup properly.

If anyone has incite or has suggestions on places to look for solutions, that would be majorly appreciated.

[gwood]

NJohns98,
Might start with https://www.cnczone.com/forums/cinci...ply-issue.html
Afterward reading that post; you may want to: With power off remove the WSCPU And RTCPU Assemblies and check the voltage on the CR 2032 Batteries; DO NOT remove them!
If they measure under 3.01 VDC look at posts regarding the loss of CMOS BIOS settings and re-flashing or restoring the BIOS settings.
The Overtravel SW killed the Drives like an E-stop; which does cause a power fluctuation.

[njohns98]

gwood,

The RTCPU battery is at 3.9V and the WSCPU battery is 3.1V

I'm in the process of pulling all the boards, cleaning the contacts, and reseating them to see if that helps. I'll also run through the other things mentioned on the other thread.

Thanks!

[njohns98]

After checking my multimeter against a powersupply, found it was super off the mark. With a different (more accurate) multimeter, I'm reading 3.1V on the RTCPU and 2.9V on the WSCPU.

[njohns98]

I have replaced the battery and am fairly sure I need to reset the CMOS BIOS settings. Tried calling the Fives tech support number that was listed in some other threads, but it just rang for 20 minutes. I'll try again tomorrow. If anyone has the BIOS settings for the 3-424-2123A02 workstation cpu board that would be very helpful. I've seen people say that it is in the reference manual, but I've gone through all the ones I have and none have a section on CMOS BIOS settings.

[gwood]

Here is the Attached PDF WSCPU_Bios: 34242123A02_Award4.51(H3-SSD-Correction).PDF

Do Not change the RTCPU Battery unless you have the board powered up on a bench with an AT-PS2 Power supply!
If so or if the battery gets too low; then it will need to be re-flashed, or set up on a bench with the correct settings.

The TS# for Fives is 859-534-4750

[maver1ck]

Looks like Greg posted while I was typing this, so will scale back my response a little bit.

If you changed your BIOS battery, yes, you most likely lost the BIOS configuration and will need to set it up again, however, based on your initial post I would also suspect an issue with your RT BIOS is likely. Since you indicated the first diagnostic failure was Bridge Board (RT), this usually indicates your WS board BIOS was OK (although if you changed the battery since then, it no longer would be).
.
Most of the other alarms you mentioned are essentially caused by a communication failure between the boards (although the extent of these alarms depends on what software/hardware is in your machine).

[njohns98]

Thanks Greg! I'm not sure the document was attached to your post unless I'm just missing it.

Also, would it work to apply the 3V directly across the battery terminals to replace the RTCPU battery? It sounds like some people try this to varying levels of success.


Yeah, I am also worried that the RTCPU battery also had the initial issue, so I'll be looking into that as well.

Thank you both!

[njohns98]

I was able to get the BIOS settings from someone at Fives. On bootup, the computer now just sits on the "OS Loader V4.01" page. I didn't get any info about the Hard disk settings, so don't know if that could be the issue.

Update: switched the drive settings from Normal to LDA(or whatever the 3 letter option is) and it booted! It is now back to the original error messages though, so I'm gonna look into the RTCPU board like maver1ck suggested.

[maver1ck]

To your question about keeping the memory by jumpering a battery in while changing the BIOS battery, some people claim to have had success doing this, but for every one that says they were successful I've probably had a dozen tell me they tried it and failed as the reason were sending their RT board to me to reflash it. However, in your case, it sounds like the BIOS has already been corrupted so there really isn't anything to save.

One other thing you can check is to verify whether you reconnected the small reset wire to the Bridge Board when you reinstalled the board. If that wire isn't connected you can get a similar failure during the diagnostics.

[njohns98]

Update:

I was able to get my hands on a a ISA VGA video card and a 5-pin din keyboard adapter. I setup the RTCPU board on the bench and changed the parameter: "HALT ON : No ERROR" (this was suggested by seraum in a different thread). After reinstalling the hardware into the machine, it boots up and doesn't run into any of the issues it did before and all the hardware startup diagnostics pass.

I am not fully out of the woods yet because an error pops up while loading the software. It says: "Output/Fuse Failure in APC Rack 0." Looks like there are plenty of threads discussing this, so I'm hoping to find the solution there. Let me know if there is anywhere you think I should start. I'm thinking there might still be an issue in the RTCPU BIOS settings. My board is: 3-424-2168A02. Thanks!

[maver1ck]

I have written up detailed responses about the "fuse" alarm in the past so won't revisit it here, but start by checking the output from your PSU2 power supply. It should be 24V, if it is low you may have a short somewhere in the machine wiring drawing it down and causing the problem.

If you have 24Vdc out of PSU2, I would suspect the RT board is still most likely as it will cause this alarm if iit can not communicate with the I/O board.

If the thread you mentioned is the one I'm thinking of, it was someone just experimenting until he found settimgs that seemed to work for him, but that doesn't mean they will work for other boards as there were a number of different BIOS versions used, each with different configurations.

I still reflash these regularly for customers so if you want an inexpensive option to have it done for you, send me a PM with your e-mail address. If I know when it is arriving I can usually have the board done and on its way back the same day.

[gwood]

NJohns68, Corrupt RTCPU is a possibility; also the DV5 should be in Slot # J3 with a CMHD in Slot # J4 to the right. J5 is normally empty unless you have a lot of Options.
You may need the 3-424-2168A02 Re-Flashed to get the proper settings that you can then document.

[njohns98]

Update: I've had a few conversations with a tech at Fives who had me reload the software settings using the uninstall window. Still had errors, so he sent me the files to flash the RTCPU board. I've reformatted a floppy to a MS-DOS startup disk on a windows XP computer and added the files from the Fives tech. They sent me the RTCPU settings to use when flashing, which I set up, but when I boot it up with the floppy attached, the computer reads "DISK BOOT FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

Here are the files that are on the floppy (combination of what was sent to me and what was there after formatting). Any thoughts on what the issue is?

[gwood]

NJohns, The Dos Bootable Disk should boot after proper formatting; then the bat. file should execute.
Bill O at fives should be able to help ???

[njohns98]

Bill was super helpful!

Turns out the settings for flashing the RTCPU BIOS needed to be modified to get the floppy drive working properly (also needed to use a second one because the first one was having issues). Successfully flashed the BIOS and reinstalled all the board.

Starts up with no errors, but the machine power will turn on for a few seconds then shut off without any error messages.

I also tested the power supply and saw it was a bit under voltage. I could see why this could cause this problem because of a power drop when everything turns on, but I would still expect to see an error message.

[gwood]

Nikolas,
1) Do you mean the control starts up; then shuts down by itself with no alarm?
2) The control boots OK and the Drives Start-up; then the drive fault with no alarm?

If the 2nd are there any fault LEDs on the Drives exactly when this happens when watching them?
GWood

[njohns98]

Control boots just fine/no errors. When I hit the button to turn the drives on before aligning the machine, they turn on for a couple seconds then shut off.

[njohns98]

Installed new power supply, but still the same problem.

Another thing of note: When the machine was running before, every time we turned it on, a keyboard error pop up would appear on the desktop screen that would need to be closed before the CNC software would boot up. The keyboard hardware diagnostic would also say "missing." Since the problems started, that pop up hasn't been showing up. The diagnostic still says failed though

[njohns98]

Update:

I was able to get the drives to power on properly by jumping P41-11 and P40-2 on the output board (this could have also been determined by testing continuity across them to avoid multiple machine startups). This bypasses the overtravel switches, which I was then able to probe to figure out the X overtravel switch circuit was open. I inspected the switch and it was stuck in the depressed position. After cleaning and actuating it a few times the switch releases properly.

Now that the drives turn on, there is a new problem. I immediately get a foldback error from the drives pop up on the display. Checking the drives, the X and Z axis drives had the foldback light on. After manually spinning the X ballscrew, the X axis drive foldback light has turned off, but once the machine power is turned on (drives powered up), the foldback error still appears for the Z axis and the X axis servo starts to slowly jog towards the home switch with no user input (slow enough that I barely noticed). Any thoughts on what might be the issue now?

Just a recap of the original issue: machine was working perfectly until hitting the Y overtravel switch while cleaning out chips. That resulted in a bootup error. I reflashed/set the BIOS in both the realtime and workstation CPU boards with information I received from Fives. They also had me reload the Acramatic software using the uninstall menu.