@Skyfire
Apologies, by "Lost" I mean that the Inputs and outputs that i can witness changing state in the first couple bytes in the IO monitor window no longer change state when I add the RS-485 slice and that it can not be seen anywhere in the 1-1000+ bit range. (2 buttons tied to the first byte of inputs are normally closed, and scrolling through the entire input range there are no inputs on).
It makes me think that's why the Kuka service guys removed the RS-485 slice and kept it 'simple' with the 8-ch cards as this is just 1 byte per slice and not some unpredictable in/out byte arrangement that the RS-485 slice must present.
The customer did tell me that the Rs-485 slice was in the first slot, and when reattaching it, i have added it as the last slot. I read nothing in the Beckhoff documentation about a specific order of adding the slices as to whether this changes the mapping of the slices as a whole.
Yes, when I remove the RS-485 slice, it works again.
Did you try it without IO assignment in IOsys.ini?
No, but i will give it a try today.
I would have thought that this type of setup, according to the thread I linked to in my original post, was almost a hardware standard for welding with a Fronius source taking into account the widespread use of both Kuka and Fronius that someone, somewhere may have a similar if not identical setup. I do understand that this is a controller running windows XP on the pendant so is quite old. It doesn't even have a floppy drive attached anywhere so not sure how i can archive to take backups.