Fanuc P/S 086 Alarm

All of the sudden I am getting this alarm? DR signal off. From my experience you get this when you do not have a cable (or good cable) plugged into the control. The machine transfered programs fine yesterday but this morning I went to do upload and no dice. I have tried it with all the cables in the shop with no success. I really don't want to have to hand key this program in tomorrow morning but it looks like thats how it is going to go. Any advice would be appreciated. I transfering programs with nclink and the control is a 0T.

Will it send a program back to the computer?

Make sure things like baud rates, parity, etc, are all set to what they are supposed to be set.

Also, make sure the memory lock key isn't turned into the lock position....

Everything is setup correctly. First thing checked was the mem lock. Wont transmit either way

This alarm refers to the DRS, pin 6, of the control being in a logic "0" state. The configuration of the cable for Xon Xoff Handshaking should be as follows:
Machine End -------------------------- PC End
Male DB25 connector ---------------- DB9 Female
1 -- Cable Shield ------------------- Not connected
2 --------------------------------------- 2
3 --------------------------------------- 3
4
| Bridged
5
7 --------------------------------------- 5
6
|
8 All Bridged
|
20

This configuration is referred to as a Loop Back, Null Modem cable, and gives the illusion of Full Handshaking, when in fact there is no handshaking at all. In a Hardware Handshaking configuration, pins 6 and 8 are bridged and then connected to pin 4 (DTR) of the DB9 connector at the PC end. The loop back comes comes about by connecting pins 6 and 8 at the control end to the DTR pin (20) at the control end. As your problem seemed to happen suddenly, its likely that you have a hardware problem with the control. After checking the cable configuration is correct, use a multi-metre to measure the voltage across pins 20 and 7 at the control; it should be around 12VDC, but anything between +4VDC and +24VDC will work.

If you find less than 4VDC with the above test, a work around if you don't want to spend any money, is to bridge pins 6 and 8 at the control end of the cable, and then connect them to pin 4 of the DB9 connector at the PC end.

Regards,

Bill

Sometimes the port on out laptop locks up and we have to reboot....If you haven't done so already, you might give it a try.

Brian

If you are sure that 4,5 and 6,8,20 are jumpered on the control side then you may have lost an RS232 transmit or receive chip that is processing the handshake signal.

Look at the Fanuc CPU module and see if you have a second serial interface (see attached). If you do move your cable (on the control) from the Serial 1 port (JD5A)to the Serial 2 port (JD5B) and change the parameters to use the serial 2 port.

Hi Brian,
You could remove the Laptop or PC altogether and as long as a cable bridged as described above is connect to the control, the alarm referred to by the OP will not be raised if all is OK at that end. This problem is not emanating from the the computer end unless its DTR line is being used to assert pin 6 of the control.

Regards,

Bill