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compact flash hard drive retrofit feedback

Jtek

Aluminum
Joined
Aug 17, 2010
Location
MN, USA
I posted back a little while ago about the problem with my Tree VMC 500 with the PC2100 that turned out to be the hard drive had failed. I am well on my way to getting it back and in operaton again. I will get to the point, I ran across this webpage for a company that offers a alternitive to using a hard drive that is installing a compact flash drive adapter and and compact flash drive that replaces the hard drive. I spoke to the company owner over the phone this morning to get more detailed information. To me right away there are three things that seem like a no brainer to choose this option. 1.) It is cheeper then buying a hard drive to clone. 2.) The company claimes they can last up to 50 times longer then a standerd IDE hard drive. ( they did say someone purchased this option from them and it did fail shortly after and that it was the only time it has ever happend and they replaced it free of charge. 3.) If the compact flash drive manages to fail it will only cost $140.00 to have them send you a new one. He said once they have your machine data they keep it for this reason. This company said that they would try to recover the data and if it was not possible they would search for another machine that is identical and clone it for a flat fee of $600.00 which seems kind of expinsive but they will jump threw the hoops rather then myself.

Threw talking to someone I found out that I can buy the compact flash adapters and flash drive for a considerable amount less and the only problem with going that route is I have the retrofit but no program information to load onto the flash drive.

I am wondering what people out there think of this option. I welcome any feed back that can be provided but mostly want to know if there is someone who has done it so I have someone other then the person trying to sell me the idea tell me what they think about it. Thanks for reading.
 
The name of the company that I was in contact with was Eagle Machine Tool Corporation. I did not say because, nobody seems to know who they are. I wanted to see if anyone would mention them. From what they say the bought TREE. I would think that these would be the people to go to for anything TREE related yet I only found this out because I happend to stumble across it while searching google. It would be nice to hear what a 3rd party has to say about it. I am not saying I do not trust them but it would be nice to have reassurance I am not throwing my money away.
 
Jtek

I sent them an "E" mail inquiry for information about a week ago and have not had a reply. I have a local Tech that is to come by and discuss the problem. He has had experience with other A2100 control systems on milling machines.

JRW
 
Wow, that is a great point.

"Flash-memory drives have limited lifetimes and will often wear out after 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 P/E cycle."

and just when I think I may have found the pot of gold and the end of the rainbow I am now unsure of this option.

I do not like the fact that every 2,000,000 cycles at best I am going to have to replace the flash drive. If I could "clone" my flash drives it would only be around $20.00 for the drive. I still do not like the thought of doing this all the time.
 
I sent them an "E" mail inquiry for information about a week ago and have not had a reply.

JRW



I had the same problem. I found the number on the website and gave them a call yesterday. They did not answer all of my questions as well as I would have liked but I am thankful the owner took time to talk. The one question I never got a straight forward reply was if they had any TREE machine data that no one seems to have such as machine parameters. If you want I can PM you with information from my conversation with the owner Ted. Otherwise I think you will have no choice but to call. He said he sent me the e-mail but it never reached my inbox.
 
Sounds like you found behaviors in a company to stay away from. No response, etc... I hope you wouldn't treat your customers that way.

Our company made a device that ran Windows from a compact flash card and we had no end of problems with it with the flash wearing out, long after the products were in the field. We eventually got it worked out with modifications to Windows and changing flash vendors and types.

Summary: it isn't that simple to do with hardware that isn't meant to be a hard drive. Possible, but not simple.
 
How much reading and writing does the HDD do?

SSD (Solid state drives) have a limited amount of read write cycles before they fail....

read about them here Solid-state drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A proper modern SSD is much more resistant to this than conventional flash drives. If you were going to go this route I'd recommend against compact flash in favour of a proper SSD with wear levelling. IDE ones are harder to find since the market is dominated by SATA-II, but they do exist.

Since conventional hard drives pretty much always suffer some mechanical or controller failure long before the actual media breaks down you'll more than likely get better life out of a current SSD.
 
Sounds like you found behaviors in a company to stay away from. No response, etc... I hope you wouldn't treat your customers that way.

I am my own customer service person.Good customer service seems to be a rare thing now days. You would think that if a company truly believed in a product they are selling they would care a little more about sales. I guess I do not get it my father and I put our blood and sweat into making this happen and now my entire life revolves around keeping my best job ever. My customers keep me employed at the most exciting and challenging job I have ever had I am not looking to loose it so I would be dumb to treat them like I do not need them to stay in business. Sorry to wonder off topic.

I never assumed that trying to retrofit the machine myself was going to be easy by any means but there is at least one company that is selling it. It is possible and I am sure with enough time and tinkering into it a person could make it work and save a considerable amount of money. For me time is one thing I do not have but I am now leaning back to getting a IDE hard drive.
 
There was a guy selling IDE drives on ebay for the A2100 machines.
I do not have his info handy.
They were under $200. Maybe $150
Very good service, and knowledgeable.

I had one of his drives as a spare, just installed it in the last couple weeks.

I think it was under Siemens CNC, not sure. Anybody else?
 
Now that sounds like a swell price to me. I am going to see if I can track this fellow down shortly. That sounds like the best price I am going to find in a pinch unless I have time to climb a mountian slay a goat with my bare hands offer its hart to the CNC gods and drink the blood.
 
There are a great deal of SST IDE drives out there, the issue I think would be finding one your system will recognize.
I have a Bridgeport EZ Surf with a PC motherboard which does not recognize the 2GB Transcend drive.

Welcome to Transcend Website - 2.5" Solid State Disk

Somewhere there are still exist some of the 20-30MB drives that can easily be told to act with a specific # of Cylinders and sectors.....
Just gotta find them
 
Now that sounds like a swell price to me. I am going to see if I can track this fellow down shortly. That sounds like the best price I am going to find in a pinch unless I have time to climb a mountian slay a goat with my bare hands offer its hart to the CNC gods and drink the blood.

Take a look!!

Cincinnati CNC Hard Drive -- Mill -- A2100 Control - eBay (item 250694089833 end time Sep-15-10 08:35:19 PDT)

I was looking for Siemens CNC, Vickers CNC and not finding it. :willy_nilly:
Digging through all of my former Ebay purchases, I found Ed's name and number. :D:D:D

Cell number, 216-509-0426.
He gave me his cell number to post.
Really a Great guy. :cheers::cheers:

You can get whatever software you need on the disk. Just ask.


Also, this link...
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/need-help-cincinnati-milacron-123628/
 
I will have to give him a call tomorrow and see what he has to offer. I think going with the IDE hard drive is my safest way to just get my machine back up and running. If he can get the TREE programs loaded and the correct prameters I am going to be the most happy person in the world. :D

I learned a lot about hard drives when I had someone here to help me figure it out. It was really nice to have someone take the time and explain there thought process. I was able to grasp enough to feel I have my feet planted ( still a long way to go.) but I am not a total idiot now. Anyways a very important lesson and that is BACK IT UP !!!! If I have to go threw this again I will give myself a heart attack due to the stress.

I figure to take the route that I know will get my machine running and then I can learn more about retrofits. Why take a chance when I do not need to. This way looks to be even cheaper also.

If this all works you are my new hero hahaha thanks a lot I am super exicted when things were looking a bit grim.

I still would not mind hearing from anyone who supports the compact flash retrofit? I am strangly addicted to reading the opinions and facts of others over the internet. I need to un-glue my eyes and get some work done.
 
I have a 2100 control that's been running on a CF card for 4 years now with no failures. It's very reliable unlike the original hard drive. I have 12 machines with 2100 controls and the hard drive has failed at least once in most of them. I used a 2 dollar IDE adapter off ebay and a 512 MB CF card. It's an early control running NT 3.51. I have another on a later control on a 2 GB card running NT 4.0. I use an NT 4.0 computer to copy my hard drives with no other software, formatting works fine for 3.51. The problem you'll have if the control fails on boot with your current drive, it will fail exactly the same way with a copy. You'll have to copy from a drive that boots clean. I've never had a hard drive fail to the point that the MTB files and lead screw compensation files couldn't be recovered from the original hard drive although it is possible. I have a MotionMaster router with a 2100 control. It's probably the only one in existence and the builder doesn't exist now. I was warned to make multiple copies of the hard drive because it would be scrap if the drive failed catastrophically. There are no other machines out there to copy.
 
I have a 2100 control that's been running on a CF card for 4 years now with no failures. It's very reliable unlike the original hard drive. I have 12 machines with 2100 controls and the hard drive has failed at least once in most of them. I used a 2 dollar IDE adapter off ebay and a 512 MB CF card. It's an early control running NT 3.51. I have another on a later control on a 2 GB card running NT 4.0. I use an NT 4.0 computer to copy my hard drives with no other software, formatting works fine for 3.51. The problem you'll have if the control fails on boot with your current drive, it will fail exactly the same way with a copy. You'll have to copy from a drive that boots clean. I've never had a hard drive fail to the point that the MTB files and lead screw compensation files couldn't be recovered from the original hard drive although it is possible. I have a MotionMaster router with a 2100 control. It's probably the only one in existence and the builder doesn't exist now. I was warned to make multiple copies of the hard drive because it would be scrap if the drive failed catastrophically. There are no other machines out there to copy.







That is some really peachy info, thanks. I was told that the hard drive information can usually be recoverd. The guy that came out here admitted he did not know how to do it. I brought it to a friend who owns a shop across town. Exclaiming not to worry he will fix it. He proceeded to fry his memory card in the process. I decided he was not a good person for help. My problem has been finding a place that is local that will recover my hard drive or at least find out. A person on this fourm offerd to try if I mailed it to them and that was super nice of them to offer but it would be nice to have it done in a day or so and have it back in my hands. So far no coumputer places I have found and called want to touch it with a ten foot pole. My control is also running NT 3.51. Then you basically retrofitted the machine yourself correct? Did you encounter any major issues with this in the process or glitches because of it?
 
Hmmmm.
You will sit on your hard drive (which is not currently in use) for weeks looking for someone local who will turn it around in a day. Fail to see the logic in that.

The fact that it is NT3.51 based is good news as it uses the same version of NTFS as NT4. NT4 is just 3.51 with the Explorer interface of Windows 95 vs the Program Manager interface of Windows 3.1. I have NT4 and a box to load it on and my offer stands.

As for the finite life of CF cards, given how cheap 512 MB cards are, why not buy 5 of them and load them all at the same time? One goes and you just power the machine down and slap a replacement in. Seems like 5 of them will likely outlive the iron.

Joe
 








 
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