I need a miracle (1994 Haas VF0)

Hi everyone! I'm still relatively new to this fourm and not incredibly active yet (been busy making parts). Anyway, I recently got a 124 low battery alarm. After talking to a friend of a friend who is a Haas tech (Let's call him Bob), he said I needed a battery kit. After talking with haas on the phone, they verified that. Parts show up, Bob shows up to install, Bob informs me that what showed up is the incorrect kind for this processor. Bob goes home, tells me the correct parts to order etc. I order the correct batteries (2 of them with tabs to solder on the board) as well as the jumper battery to save the information while the old batteries are removed. Parts come in, Bob shows up. He removes the entire processor board from the cabinet and unplugs all of the cables (I have read somewhere you are not supposed to do this?) Solders the new batteries on, re-installs the processor, and it seemed like everything was going to be good to go. Well, after getting everything place an alarm on the bottom left of the screen comes up "system error" Chip auger is spazzing out and something else was making some weird noise. Also, red lights flashing everywhere inside the electrical cabinet. He turns on and off the machine a few times, and is stumped. This is 10:00 PM. We decide to call it a night. After he left I turned the machine on once more and the "system Error" message went away, but There is now a bunch of alarms as follows:

102 Servos off (I'm aware what this one is)
124 (low battery)
203 lead screw CRC error
204 offset CRC error
261 Rotary CRC error
205 Programs CRC error
250 Prog Data Error
212 Prog Integrity Error
107 Emergency off
119 Over Voltage

Mind you that before this battery swap this machine was working almost flawlessly. Quirks here or there that all old machines have, but it was working like it should.

So I send him a picture of this, and he thinks it is good now and we will be able to reload parameters, settings etc. (The good new is that I backed up both parameters and settings on a usb before any of this fiasco)




So he comes back out today, Installs parameters and settings etc. Messed with it for a little while. Thinks he has everything fixed. I load a program, program runs well. Ran it through the graphics, looks right. Jogged the machine around, put in some random offsets, did some tool changes, coolant on/ off, jogged the machine around, everything seemed ok. Turned the machine off and back on, and it lost the serial number that he just installed, lost offsets, program I loaded was corrupt. We would turn the machine on and it would be some random ass serial number and there would be some absurd sounding values in the tool offsets in completely random places.

He is convinced it is the processor board, but what I don't get is how it was fine before it was taken out to be soldered. Thoughts????

Bob is a good guy and was only trying to help me out. I don't necessarily blame him for this.

is it the processor? Could anything else be done to fix this? BTW I am a machinist, not a maintenance man. I know little about any of this, which makes matters more difficult.

If anyone has suggestions or solutions, feel free to let me know.

Thank you.

I think that if you got a low battery alarm again the battery installation was either incorrect or a bad battery. You should measure the battery voltage with the machine off. These are 3 volt lithium batteries and I think the alarm is when they are down to 2.5 volts.
No problem removing all the board connectors, just use the manual to be sure all are replaced inn the correct location.
Did he use a grounding strap when removing the board, soldering and replacing the board?

ya def sounds like a battery problem. parameters aren't staying in machine when you're power cycling.

magno_grail said:

I think that if you got a low battery alarm again the battery installation was either incorrect or a bad battery. You should measure the battery voltage with the machine off. These are 3 volt lithium batteries and I think the alarm is when they are down to 2.5 volts.
No problem removing all the board connectors, just use the manual to be sure all are replaced inn the correct location.
Did he use a grounding strap when removing the board, soldering and replacing the board?

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Thank you both of you. I called worldwide solutions and the man on the phone (sounded very knowledgeable) seemed to think it may be a low voltage power supply issue. He told me what to test with a multi-meter, so I'm hoping that's it. Will keep you updated.

sounds like it lost its parameters when you did the battery swap ,,, I got all kind of alarms pop up when i lost parameters do to a battery.

D.D.Machine said:

sounds like it lost its parameters when you did the battery swap ,,, I got all kind of alarms pop up when i lost parameters do to a battery.

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100%

The problem is when loading everything back on it won't save anything when the machine is turned off. He had it where everything was just about working correctly and then we powered it off and back on and it went crazy. I tested the voltage going into the processor and everything was 2X what it was supposed to be.

IE +5 was reading 10 v

+12 was reading 25 volts

The software version etc is still loading at the beginning, which leads me to believe the board is still ok (hopefully)

Turns out I was reading the multimeter on AC settings. Doh. Voltage from the low voltage power supply was where it was supposed to be. The haas guy thinks it's the processor board. It must have gotten some static or something when it was handled. I'm hoping at least. I overnighted the package to worldwide industrial services and they said they can diagnose everything tomorrow. Hoping its an easy fix and that's the issue. It really sucks having only 1 machine.