Denford Software & Machines

I have a vmc triac mill heidenhain controller using DDT, I keep on getting an error message, controller communications. Does any body no what this is referring too. The fault is intermittent. Any help on this matter would be gratefully received.

Kind regards Dale

It could be electrical noise - posibly from the spindle. Try executing a few cnc programs without the spindle running and see if it still happens (btw, how often does it hapen?).

I also rememeber an early software problem when maching arcs - possibly with large radii. Could it be this???

Hi, Mr. Magoo

About radius and tool comp I'm currently not using them in my programs. The problem has got worst as I can not even load the control software most of the time. When it does load I can load a saved cnc program and edit it. But when I go into manual to home the axis, the screen freezes up. Sometimes it un freezes but then freezes seconds later. 50% of the time after freezing it reports error controller communications the other it just freezes. Any further help would be gratefully received.

Regards Dale

Doesn't sound too healthy

It does sound like an electrical noise problem. A few suggestions...

Try running the software with ESTOP pressed in (so the axis drives aren't powered up)
If it's a desktop PC make sure the earthing is good
Check the screen on the serial cable is good
Try downloading the latest version of the heiden software for Triac (I think this is probably it viewtopic.php?t=266 )
Try the Fanuc verion of the software. It could be a heidenhain version issue (you'll have to alter Fanuc software to run with the QDENFORD keypad driver as you wont have a Fanuc DTT)

HTH
James

Hi Mr. Magoo

First I tried estop pressed in problem still there, then I checked earthing with mutli meter all of them seem good. then I removed every driver boards, mutli plug in the electrical cabinet and desktop pc still no change.
Next I loaded most of the legacy DOS software. ( could not load fanuc due to dos error 128 ) but the problem persisted. Lastly I changed the monitor and power cable, but it made no difference.

Thanks for all your suggestions but it does look like it toast for this current control . I'll think I will try and convert it to the mach platform piggy back style.

P.S. I've attached some different versions of heidenhain software that came with my machine.

Thanks for the upload
I have put the sw into a ZIP file (thought it would be more accessable to windows users) and posted it into the downloads section as well:
viewtopic.php?t=1761