Thanks Pcarbines, it's good to know the history.
Posts by RoboDad
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Thanks Pcarbines, that's really helpful! How does one get these "secret squirrel" manuals? I downloaded all the XRC manuals from the Motoman website, scanned through them all (I thought), and don't recall seeing this information.
On a related note... It's not clear to me why Motoman would want to keep this info secret. I mean, I understand that they want to sell services, but promoting an active DIY Motoman repair/user community is only going to generate more business for Motoman, in the long run, IMO. Keeping these old Motoman robots running just generates more interest in Motoman robots, in general. I keep showing off this SV3X to my friends and they think it's the cat's pajamas.
Anyhow, thanks again.
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Thanks Pcarbines... I will swap the battery with the power on.
I think I found the trove of manuals on the Motoman site, including the SV3X manual. Thanks for the info!
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I'm new to programming these robots. I just got my SV3X (XRC) moving around. I kind of expected that, once I had re-calibrated the home position, there would be hard limits to axis rotations. But I seem to be able to jog right up to the edge of crashing the arm without hitting any kind of limit. The manual references soft limits... is that all there is? Seems like I should be able to set up "hard" limits for the individual joint rotations. Where is this described? I feel like there's a manual I'm missing. Thanks for any pointers!
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Ok, I made progress! I replaced the encoder batteries, set the home position, and now I can jog the arm around! Woohoo!
I would also like to replace the battery inside the XRC controller (I haven't gotten an alarm on it, but it's been sitting in my garage for years, so I figure I'm tempting fate). Question is: is it better to replace the battery with the XRC powered on, or off? The manual doesn't say which. It does suggest that there's a super capacitor that will keep the memory going for some period of time. So that would suggest that I change the battery with the power off? What's the best practice here? Thanks!
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I did another CMOS save and it prompted if I wanted to overwrite the CMOS file. So... I'm just gonna assume it successfully saved.
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Ok, yeah, that makes sense. Thanks!
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I followed the directions in this forum on backing up my CMOS. Got a 16mb sandisk CF card and pcmcia adapter, formatted on old camera, booting into maintenance mode, saved the CMOS... it beeped after a few seconds, like it seemed happy. But no feedback that it successfully saved. Then, when I boot into the regular user mode, and select "Verify," I don't see any indication that the save file is on the card (see attached pic). All the numbers in the rightmost column (which I'm assuming are file counts) are zero.
What's the easiest way to verify that I have a clean backup? I don't want to actually load the backup, unless absolutely necessary.
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Thanks Robodoc. I will try that.
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I'm trying to replace the encoder batteries on my SV3X arm. The batteries don't look like the factory batteries. Something the previous owner put together, maybe. Basically each battery "pack" consists of two Toshiba ER6V cells wired in parallel. On one of the packs, there are two components soldered to each of positive leads from the battery: a resistor and Schottky barrier diode. What purpose do they serve? Current limiting? Should I build a replacement "pack" that exactly matches? The OEM batteries don't appear to be widely available these days. I have included a photo. Thanks for any info.
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Hello Motoman robot experts,
I have a Motoman SV3X with XRC controller that I've never powered up before. Before powering it up, I have some questions about power requirements. This is in my home shop. I'm hoping to power the robot with a rotary phase converter. At the fuses, I measure 240v phase-to-phase, which seems in line with the XRC manual's voltage range (albeit toward the high side). However, the manual says the phase-to-ground measurements should be 220v between R-G and T-G, but 0v between S-G. My phase to ground voltages are more like 120,120,208 (standard for this type of rotary phase converter). Am I going to run into trouble with this? Does the XRC measure, or expect, specific ground-relative voltages? If so, what is the best way to convert single phase to three phase in a way that the XRC will tolerate?
Update: reading up on this, I see that this configuration is call "corner grounded delta." Also, my XRC controller has a transformer, which was originally wired for 480v. I switched to the 240v taps. The docs suggest the output of the transformer is 208v delta-wye (at least that's how I'm reading the star symbol). Does anyone have any experience with this?
Update2: measured the phase-to-phase voltages at the QS2 fuses and get about 210v for all three. phase-to-ground voltages at QS2 are all around 120v.
I decided to go ahead and flip the switch and... it seemed to boot up fine, but immediately I get two alarms: 4311 and 4107. I'm guessing the encoder battery is dead... the robot sat for eight years in my garage. Replacing the battery (batteries?) is next?
It's progress, I suppose.
I'm still concerned about the turning on the servos with my non-corner-grounded-delta power supply. Should I be?
Thanks for any help you can offer,
Geoff