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CNC changed itself to German

RickR

Plastic
Joined
Aug 8, 2016
Hello. SIEMENS 2100 controller switched itself to Something that looks like German over the weekend. It also will go blank after about 20 minutes. I had no battery alarm. Still even if it went bad why would it switch language lol. I cant read it to fix anything . Tech support wants $300 to talk to me because it's a older system. Is it more serious. A board go bad. I could use a good source for help if it's more serious. Someone that can come look at it. In Paxton Nebraska. Thanks for the help.
 
Not a Siemens guy, but German would be default language I would think, so maybe it has lost power even without alarm. I guess I would replace battery and then check power supply voltages.
 
Are you sure it did it on its own?
Experienced a Heidenhain control doing a similar thing. Except I eventually found out it was a bored 3rd shift operator playing with magic that he didnt understand lol
He was messing around in the parameters.
 
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Lol yeah. I don't think anyone worked the weekend. Might have to use a translator to get it back to English.
 
A couple of ways you can go about this but first you could just try to swap to English from command prompt.



  1. Firstly press the Windows logo key and R on the keyboard, you will then open the Run prompt on your computer screen. Type cmd, then press OK, you will open the Command Line on your Windows PC.
  2. Input and execute follow command in the CMD prompt:
    chcp 437. This is the code for English
The second is a bit dangerous because it opens the master service option so you can get into the windows system itself. You would need your service manual to follow the key steps since they are not in English. When the system boots Click on (Bedienung) German for service. The master password is "worldclass", This will allow you to make changes within windows NT itself. Use your phone or another PC and follow the clicks on a YouTube video about changing languages in windows. DON'T go into "folders". The A-2100 Keeps a backup of the MAI in (D) drive and if you click it your system will reboot to factory fresh and you will lose everything.

After you reset the language to English check you screen timeout setting to see if this is what is shutting you down after 20 minutes. I suspect your graphics card is probably about to kill over so not sure if the system timeout will do any good. Once you have it back to normal click service again from the CNC screen and set password to "operator". The A-2100 is by far my most favorite system but it's super delicate. If you're unsure of what it does,,,,Don't touch it.

Here's one more video I found that at the 1:23 mark shows the keyboard and display can be changed inside the MAI. I'm not sure if it changes the windows language or just the system UI.

YouTube
Bedienung
 
Take a picture of the screen and then go to a computer and type the words one sentence or so at a time into an online German to English translator. Somewhat tedious but free instead of $300.
 
One thing that might be really useful in this situation is the 'Google translate' app on your phone. The new versions of that app have a 'live text translation' mode where you point your phone camera at something and then it shows the picture of it on the screen, but with all the text translated to english, and it does this in real-time.

This will at least give you a way to potentially find the parameter and change it back!

I have used the same feature pointed at my computer screen while browsing some obscure AliExpress listings that had only chinese writing on the boxes of the the products they were displaying and it worked well!
 








 
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