STARMILL NOT CONNECTING TO PC
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Adrian Carty
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Fri 07 Apr , 2006 18:27 pm
STARMILL NOT CONNECTING TO PC
I Was recently contacted by a friend 80 years young who is still running a starmill he has a problem in that it wont connect to his pc error on pc screen "a connection to your starmill could not be found" error on lcd display ON STARMILL "BAD COMMAND" I am a computer engineer my self and his seial port and cable are good software settings 4800 7 bit Even, parity yet no connection can be established. looking in the back door of the starmill we have two green leds and one red one marked x13 flashing red. Any surgestion would be much appreciated as I would love to get this machine back in production for my good friend.
It sounds like this machine is some 15 years old and my memory isn't as good as it was, but I'll try to give you some clues...
1) The controller inside your version of starmill was known as an SMCU and manufactured by a company called North East Electronics. Check out their website https://nee-controls.com/legacy_downloads.html where you'll find some PDFs that give more information about this SMCU controller.
2) You mention the RED LED on the control board. This should flash on and off approx twice a second when you first put power to the machine to indicates a healthy board.
As soon as the board sees anything entering the serial port the LED function changes and now flashes everytiem characters recieved via the RS232 port.
If the board knows it has a fault, the led flashes a number of times, then waits for a couple of seconds - the number of flashes indictes the type of fault. From the SMCU manual these are...
Overtravel Error 1 short flash ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
Stepper Drive Fault 2 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
Datum Error 3 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
Ext. Stop pressed 4 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
ROM, RAM, Data Error 5 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
Keypad Command Error 6 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
3) The front display was connected to the controller board via an internal serial link (not RS232 but similar). The "bad command" error is probably indicating that the front display is recieving some unrecognised garbage being sent by the contro board. Could be a faulty board, or could be because...
4) The SMCU controller has some battery-backed RAM onboard. At 15 years old I guess this is now dead! In theory it doesn't matter beause the contents were sent from the PC every time the PC-Machine link was established, but if it has become corupt it may be preventing the control board from booting up in the first place. When was the last time this machine was successfuly operated?
Hope all this info is of some help.
Let me know the LED state if you still have problems.
1) The controller inside your version of starmill was known as an SMCU and manufactured by a company called North East Electronics. Check out their website https://nee-controls.com/legacy_downloads.html where you'll find some PDFs that give more information about this SMCU controller.
2) You mention the RED LED on the control board. This should flash on and off approx twice a second when you first put power to the machine to indicates a healthy board.
As soon as the board sees anything entering the serial port the LED function changes and now flashes everytiem characters recieved via the RS232 port.
If the board knows it has a fault, the led flashes a number of times, then waits for a couple of seconds - the number of flashes indictes the type of fault. From the SMCU manual these are...
Overtravel Error 1 short flash ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
Stepper Drive Fault 2 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
Datum Error 3 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
Ext. Stop pressed 4 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
ROM, RAM, Data Error 5 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
Keypad Command Error 6 short flashes ON then OFF for 2.5 secs repeated
3) The front display was connected to the controller board via an internal serial link (not RS232 but similar). The "bad command" error is probably indicating that the front display is recieving some unrecognised garbage being sent by the contro board. Could be a faulty board, or could be because...
4) The SMCU controller has some battery-backed RAM onboard. At 15 years old I guess this is now dead! In theory it doesn't matter beause the contents were sent from the PC every time the PC-Machine link was established, but if it has become corupt it may be preventing the control board from booting up in the first place. When was the last time this machine was successfuly operated?
Hope all this info is of some help.
Let me know the LED state if you still have problems.