What's new
What's new
By:
Advanced search…

Practiced what I preached.

DouglasJRizzo

DouglasJRizzo

Titanium
Joined
Jun 7, 2011
Location
Ramsey, NJ.
When I taught the classes, I always hammered it to the customers to back up their machine parameters as soon as they got back to their respective shops. Well, I'm sure glad I took my own advice! My Mori Seiki SL3-H finally cooked a board in the control, after 34 years. Called Fanuc and got a new board and the first thing I got asked was - "Did you ever back up the control?" You bet I did. Parameters, PC Parameters, everything. Literally, everything. The look of relief on the guy's face was priceless.

Do yourselves a favor - back up your controls.
 
DouglasJRizzo said:
Do yourselves a favor - back up your controls.
Click to expand...

Hello Douglas,
Good advice.

With regards to making a complete backup, there are some data files that can't be uploaded via RS232 and other means of data transfer from the control. Accordingly, the screens associated with this data must be hand copied, or photographed. On controls from circa FS16i, Screen Capture was available; a convenient feature that saves a lot of writting. Setting parameter bit 3301.7 will enable this feature and 3301.0 set the colour palate to either 16 (setting 1), or 256 (setting 0).

The screen image is saved as a bitmap file to either a Memory Card, or USB Stick by selection via parameter 21, or via the Setting Page; 4 for Memory Card, 17 for USB.

To save a screen image, display the screen to be saved and hold the Shift Key for 5 Seconds. The image is saved to a file with the prefix HDCPY_ _ _,

Where:
_ _ _ = 001 to 999

Each new image file name will be incremented by "1" to and including "999". When 999 has been reached, the next image saved will revert back to a suffix of "001".

Regards,


Bill
 
I'll go one on top of that, If the machine has a HD in it, pull and ghost/copy/transfer whatever to a new harddisk and shelf it. If it's not an ssd I would transfer to the ssd and put the ssd in and shelf the original. it's not a question of if but when its gonna fail.
 
We installed a Memex board in our 6MB about 1991. Worked faultlessly. While attempting to get a Calmotion USB talking to the control (we never did get it to work) all parameters on the Memex were erased. Most were restored from the original Fanuc bubble board. However, a large number of of parameters regarding atc funtion pitch error etc were not transferred. The solution was to reinstall the Fanuc board and photograph all the parameter screens on an ipad and then retype them in. All binary numbers 00100011 etc.
This might be a good idea for all controls.
 
Thanks for the great info here. We've been doing SRAM backups to memory cards and I thought we were OK.

Bill, I wasn't aware that this SRAM backup wouldn't get everything we could possibly need. I'm confused when you say that some data files can't be uploaded by RS232. I guess I don't understand exactly which screens should be pictured or captured by the Screen Capture you describe.

Can you give me some more guidance as to what else besides an SRAM backup is needed, as well as how exactly we need to do this?
 
John Deere said:
Thanks for the great info here. We've been doing SRAM backups to memory cards and I thought we were OK.

Bill, I wasn't aware that this SRAM backup wouldn't get everything we could possibly need. I'm confused when you say that some data files can't be uploaded by RS232. I guess I don't understand exactly which screens should be pictured or captured by the Screen Capture you describe.

Can you give me some more guidance as to what else besides an SRAM backup is needed, as well as how exactly we need to do this?
Click to expand...

You can back up your PC parameters, and other data manually, that is by writing them down. That's what I did but my machine is VERY old. On newer (2011 and later) Fanuc cncs you can back up things from a menu on the I/O page and that includes the PC parameters, ladders, etc.
 
(At the risk of tempting fate :stirthepot:) I have luckily never lost and had to reload parameters. I know we do keep backups but why is it so critical to keep your own backups in a fire-proof safe guarded by sharks with frickin laser beams, etc? Is it just that the MTBs do NOT keep perfect records that can be called upon as needed??? :dunce:
 
Nerdlinger said:
....... Is it just that the MTBs do NOT keep perfect records that can be called upon as needed??? :dunce:
Click to expand...

Flip it around. Do you keep data on something you made 20-30+ years ago? And, if you do, how much work does it take to pull it together and send it off on request. Maybe for free? Or, if you do charge for it, face the irate customer that wants it for free, yesterday, even though they bought the machine second or third hand.
 
I go a bit overboard with backups for my home machine. First of each year, backup to a PCMCIA card on the card reader on the machine. Backup by RS232 to my shop computer. Copy of that backup on a thumb drive that I keep at the house.

When I did field service, I probably averaged a couple brain dead machines a month. More than half of those had some kind of backup, even if that was some old hardcopy printed out when the machine was new or data pulled from a similar machine. Those usually got back to work pretty quickly. I've had a few where all data had to be figured out and loaded. To the point of pulling covers to measure the ballscrew pitch or see what encoder count was used. Those took days and a correspondingly large service bill.
 
Nerdlinger said:
(At the risk of tempting fate :stirthepot:) I have luckily never lost and had to reload parameters. I know we do keep backups but why is it so critical to keep your own backups in a fire-proof safe guarded by sharks with frickin laser beams, etc? Is it just that the MTBs do NOT keep perfect records that can be called upon as needed??? :dunce:
Click to expand...

The bitch about the factory backups is any time you’ve spent jacking around getting them just the way you like or want them would be lost. Any custom codes or 9000’s programs you’ve made poof gone. It’d be a pain in the ass to do all over again.

This has me a bit concerned to be honest. Due to the virus I left work on March 18th and won’t possibly return until May 4th. I can’t remember the last time if ever the batteries have been replaced in our i series controls. The O control I’d bet is a boat anchor by now. I have some notes and maybe some of the stuff I might need is here on PM.

I need to spend the time to learn how to do this for myself.


Brent
 
Nerdlinger said:
(At the risk of tempting fate :stirthepot:) I have luckily never lost and had to reload parameters. I know we do keep backups but why is it so critical to keep your own backups in a fire-proof safe guarded by sharks with frickin laser beams, etc? Is it just that the MTBs do NOT keep perfect records that can be called upon as needed??? :dunce:
Click to expand...

Many low end builders do not. Some do. Why tempt fate? Also, when I worked for a Tool Builder, they kept records, BUT - they were all in the home office in the mother land and it would be a week before we would see them if we needed to help a distributor or customer. The home office worked under the opinion that it is the job of the customer to maintain back ups. Would you risk a week plus of down time? It's just too easy to back things up on a lunch hour.
 
Vancbiker said:
When I did field service, I probably averaged a couple brain dead machines a month. More than half of those had some kind of backup, even if that was some old hardcopy printed out when the machine was new or data pulled from a similar machine. Those usually got back to work pretty quickly. I've had a few where all data had to be figured out and loaded. To the point of pulling covers to measure the ballscrew pitch or see what encoder count was used. Those took days and a correspondingly large service bill.
Click to expand...

When I worked for a MTB I remember hearing of some pretty impressive invoices because the documentation was lost, no backups, and the distributor that sold the machine was long gone as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

SageGlad
Change Mitsubishi control parameters degrees per minute to inches per minute
Replies
3
Views
357
SageGlad
SageGlad
G
Hitachi-Seiki HT23J
Replies
3
Views
181
SeikiCorp
SeikiCorp
1
Fanuc 18MC 916 DRAM Parity Error Recovery Help
2
Replies
23
Views
1K
SeikiCorp
SeikiCorp
chip_maker
Unsupported older Haas mill control and battery replacement question
Replies
1
Views
503
Donkey Hotey
Donkey Hotey
J
PARAMETERS MORI SEIKI CL-200B/500
Replies
1
Views
749
DB_eng
D








 

ABOUT PRACTICAL MACHINIST

With more than 10.6 million unique visitors over the last year, Practical Machinist is the most visited site for metalworking professionals. Practical Machinist is the easiest way to learn new techniques, get answers quickly and discuss common challenges with your peers. Register for the world’s largest manufacturing technology forum for free today to stay in the know.

Learn more about us.

STAY CONNECTED

Facebook Instagram YouTube LinkedIn Pinterest Twitter Tiktok

Register Become a forum member. Register today.

Sign Up Sign up for our e-newsletter.

© 2024 Copyright Practicalmachinist.com. All Rights reserved.

Back
Top