[AZ_Ron]

Hi all... I'm hoping for the best, but planning for the worst at this point.

As the old saying goes, "No good deed goes unpunished"...

I'm trying to help out one of my best friends, he has a '96 VF3 and last week got the message about the battery dying, 30 days, etc...
He mentioned it to me and I did a little digging and it looked like it was something that should be pretty easily doable for myself.
I soldered up a 3V lithium battery with a connector on it to temporarily power the board while I replaced the pair of 3V batteries. I took lots of pics to make sure when everything went back together I didn't miss anything or could confirm if I wasn't sure.
I plugged in the temporary battery, then proceeded to remove the board from the machine to do the replacement on the bench, as his machine is a bit to close to the wall and the back door opens to about 40 degrees... it's tight, and I could get the boards out, but would have been very difficult if not impossible to do the battery replacement back there.
I replaced one battery at a time, all the while making sure the connector for the temporary battery stayed secure. After reinstalling the board and powering up the machine, the monitor comes up with "System Failure" and "CRC Error". There are no codes.
He has a data/parameter sheet that has everything listed on it, but the information in the machine wasn't backed up to disk before the swap.
Does this sound like we lost all the settings and parameters for some reason, or is this a sign of something more ominous?
I haven't had any luck finding a procedure for reentering the parameters from his sheet... Can anyone point me in the right direction?
He's hit a pretty rough spot and is scraping by, so I'm trying to help him out and am really dreading that I might have screwed the pooch on this.
I'd really appreciated any help/advice any of you'd be willing to pass on...

Thanks VERY much in advance!

Ron

[haastec]

Hi all... I'm hoping for the best, but planning for the worst at this point.

As the old saying goes, "No good deed goes unpunished"...

I'm trying to help out one of my best friends, he has a '96 VF3 and last week got the message about the battery dying, 30 days, etc...
He mentioned it to me and I did a little digging and it looked like it was something that should be pretty easily doable for myself.
I soldered up a 3V lithium battery with a connector on it to temporarily power the board while I replaced the pair of 3V batteries. I took lots of pics to make sure when everything went back together I didn't miss anything or could confirm if I wasn't sure.
I plugged in the temporary battery, then proceeded to remove the board from the machine to do the replacement on the bench, as his machine is a bit to close to the wall and the back door opens to about 40 degrees... it's tight, and I could get the boards out, but would have been very difficult if not impossible to do the battery replacement back there.
I replaced one battery at a time, all the while making sure the connector for the temporary battery stayed secure. After reinstalling the board and powering up the machine, the monitor comes up with "System Failure" and "CRC Error". There are no codes.
He has a data/parameter sheet that has everything listed on it, but the information in the machine wasn't backed up to disk before the swap.
Does this sound like we lost all the settings and parameters for some reason, or is this a sign of something more ominous?
I haven't had any luck finding a procedure for reentering the parameters from his sheet... Can anyone point me in the right direction?
He's hit a pretty rough spot and is scraping by, so I'm trying to help him out and am really dreading that I might have screwed the pooch on this.
I'd really appreciated any help/advice any of you'd be willing to pass on...

Thanks VERY much in advance!

Ron

When the machine powers and goes through the boot up process, watch to see if the machine model and software versions show up. Software will be displayed similar to this: M12.18N (just pulled that out of the air, but format will be similar)

If it does not show the software or model (like Vf-4 or whatever) then yes you probably lost the memory.
Next, look at a parameter that you know needs an activation code like rigid tap or macros. See if they are still active.

If your machine shows model number, software version, and parameters that require a code are still turned on, then you probably did not wipe out the memory.

If those steps check out okay, then I would go back and make sure that ALL of the cables you disconnected to get to the processor board are back into the correct locations. Check all three boards.

[AZ_Ron]

Software version shows up, but no model. I'm guessing I did something stupid along the way... here are a couple of screen shots of the monitor.
The one showing 'Warning - Low Battery Voltage' is when the machine is brought up to a DOS prompt...
Any idea why it would still show the 'Low Battery' error? Is there something that needs to be done to initialize or reset it?
This machine has the 16MB board in it which has two batteries... I replaced them, one at a time, with a pair of brand new 'StreamLight' 3V CR123A Lithium batteries.
Before putting the board back in the machine, I flipped it over and took voltage reading off of the back of the board and both were at 3.2V.

Here are the screen shots... When it boots up now, there are several error messages that all flash by in the lower left hand corner after it tells me that English, Francais, etc have been found... so the languages are intact! (What part of the system are they stored in?)
The last message shown is usually 'System Error' or 'Setting CRC Error'... I've also seen other messages regarding coolant pump and what not.

I'm really hoping I didn't nuke the board!

[AZ_Ron]

Since the parameters and settings were not backed up prior to the battery replacement (Believe me, no one things I'm a bigger dumbass than I do!) I have this sheet that was stored inside the back door of the machine.
Is there a way to input these manually or is having a Haas Tech come out the only option? Live and learn I guess...

[haastec]

Software version shows up, but no model. I'm guessing I did something stupid along the way... here are a couple of screen shots of the monitor.
The one showing 'Warning - Low Battery Voltage' is when the machine is brought up to a DOS prompt...
Any idea why it would still show the 'Low Battery' error? Is there something that needs to be done to initialize or reset it?
This machine has the 16MB board in it which has two batteries... I replaced them, one at a time, with a pair of brand new 'StreamLight' 3V CR123A Lithium batteries.
Before putting the board back in the machine, I flipped it over and took voltage reading off of the back of the board and both were at 3.2V.

Here are the screen shots... When it boots up now, there are several error messages that all flash by in the lower left hand corner after it tells me that English, Francais, etc have been found... so the languages are intact! (What part of the system are they stored in?)
The last message shown is usually 'System Error' or 'Setting CRC Error'... I've also seen other messages regarding coolant pump and what not.

I'm really hoping I didn't nuke the board!

The good news is, you didn't NUKE the board. However, it does look like you lost all of the parameters, settings, etc.
Don't worry about any of the displayed alarms at this time. Hopefully the battery one goes away also but that all depends on why the memory got lost in the first place.

When the machine gets to the screen like in the first picture (DOS prompt), type in the appropriate machine model then press ENTER. Ex: VF-4 or VF-3SS
This will cause the machine to initilize to a base set of parameters and the machine will reboot.

Once it reboots, you should no longer see the DOS prompt and will boot to it's regular screen. You should also see the model name display when it boots up to. Expect many different alarms still until all the parameters get reset.
At this point you will need to go through all of the parameters and make sure they are all set to match your paper copy. It's really to bad you did not back them up first (not trying to rub salt into the wound). Some may still require fine tuning, such as tool change height and spindle orientation to name a few, so proceed slowly and with caution when you get things going again.

Some of your parameters will require an unlock code, all depends on what the machine was equipped with. Call your dealer if you do not have these handy. Also ask for the machine unlock code or the machine will lock you out after 200 hours (not good!). Highlight the machine serial number in settings then enter the machine unlock code followed by ENTER to disable that lock.

Once all of the parameters are reset, reboot the machine and hopefully all the alarms will be gone.

Then go through settings and reset accordingly.

Hopefully this makes sense and gets you going.

[haastec]

Since the parameters and settings were not backed up prior to the battery replacement (Believe me, no one things I'm a bigger dumbass than I do!) I have this sheet that was stored inside the back door of the machine.
Is there a way to input these manually or is having a Haas Tech come out the only option? Live and learn I guess...

Unlock the parameter lock in settings, then while the machine is in E-Stop, go through the parameters line by line and make the necessary changes.

[AZ_Ron]

In order to get to the DOS prompt, I have to hold down the Prgrm/Convrs button when I hit the power button. If I just hit the power button, I get the items listed above, languages, etc...

At the prompt, I entered 'VF-3' and hit enter and also tried 'VF3' <Enter> and got "UNDEFINED COMMAND" Is there something else on this line I need to enter, or some kind of precursor?


On another note, The Parameter sheet I have has all of the options listed, as well as the code to turn on Macros, Coordinate Rotation and Scaling, Rigid Tapping and High Speed Option...
I don't see a Machine Unlock code listed on the sheet so am assuming I'll have to call them for that. I'm trying to hold off calling as long as I can and trying to get this sorted out as far as I can first.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help in this!!! My buddy is telling me not to worry about it, $hit happens, but I'm really upset with myself!

[AZ_Ron]

UPDATE...

Okay... there's hope even in the darkest of times!! After clearing the BBU but leaving the serial number locations intact, the memory test passed and upon getting a prompt, I typed in "VF-3" and it initialized and took me to the parameters screens!! This was 5 minutes before I HAD to leave, so I'm hopeful now. I'll be back in the morning to hopefully get the parameters entered and work on inputting settings.
I haven't come across a procedure for doing the settings... any chance you (or anyone) might have a method or checklist for that?
I am pretty surprised that there isn't more of the nitty gritty info like this out there... hopefully my hair pulling experience will help somebody else!!

R

[haastec]

UPDATE...

Okay... there's hope even in the darkest of times!! After clearing the BBU but leaving the serial number locations intact, the memory test passed and upon getting a prompt, I typed in "VF-3" and it initialized and took me to the parameters screens!! This was 5 minutes before I HAD to leave, so I'm hopeful now. I'll be back in the morning to hopefully get the parameters entered and work on inputting settings.
I haven't come across a procedure for doing the settings... any chance you (or anyone) might have a method or checklist for that?
I am pretty surprised that there isn't more of the nitty gritty info like this out there... hopefully my hair pulling experience will help somebody else!!

R

PM sent

[greggv]

I hope you have more than the 1 parameter sheet, as all I can see listed is the X axis motor. Good luck with this!

[mezacnc]

Hello, were you able to solve the problem? I'm going through the same thing as you and I would appreciate your help.