Fatal Error Is the unit PooPoo'd

[viscoelastic]

First I got the lovely scarlet colored screen below. I reloaded the OS and everything came back up... YES, I fixed it... Wrong... now it gave me the even more lovely carbon black screen seen below. I reloaded again and the thing only works for about an hour then the party starts again. Should I just assume the unit crapped the bed, or is there something else I should look for?

Thanks

 

[Flex727]

It may not help, but I would pull the battery for an hour and try again. I would also attempt to load a blank project if it gets to a state to accept software.

[viscoelastic]

Thanks Flex,

I am going to try the battery pull, It will accept the O/S and my program. Then after about an hour or so of sitting it drops a loaf and goes red. This is a new machine we are building, nothing is running on it yet.

[Flex727]

Likely infant mortality, but load a blank program and let it sit for the requisite hour or so and see if it red screens of death.

[Joe Tauser]

What you're describing does indeed sound like there may indeed be a hardware problem.

Search the Help for "bootstrap".  Get your PLC into this mode and try loading the OS and then follow Flex's suggestion.  If the loaf reappears, you probably have a bad PLC.

Joe T.

[viscoelastic]

Well boys, I thank you for the help. The problem seems to happen once it warms up. I believe it has had a good life and it is time to meet its maker. I believe I will take it home, and let it die of lead poisoning traveling at 2800 fpm.  In with a whimper.... Out With A Bang I always say.

[Flex727]

1 hour ago, viscoelastic said:

I believe it has had a good life and it is time to meet its maker.

You said you were building a new machine so I assumed the PLC was new as well. How old is it?

[viscoelastic]

 

15 minutes ago, Flex727 said:

You said you were building a new machine so I assumed the PLC was new as well. How old is it?

This was a unit I had on my desk for testing/learning.  It's a couple of years old.

[Ausman]

Before you chuck it, unscrew it all, pull it apart as much as possible and reassemble.  It could simply be a dud connection, perhaps due to all that crap that comes off your testbench.   Spilt coffee, bread/cake crumbs, humidity, blood sweat and tears, blah blah.  The internals often have pcb pins engaging into other pcbs, and these possibly need the connection made "better" by disturbance.

cheers, Aus

[kratmel]

If there is a problem of this kind - of course the PLC can be blown up or even given to students to learn how to solder chips.
You cannot use it for something important - such as an industrial machine.
However, I would put it on the shelf as a donor with a touchscreen and a working LCD screen.
And after a while you will be pleasantly surprised by the ability to quickly solve the problem of accidentally broken glass or broken lighting in the panel.

I already have quite a lot of absolutely working PLCs with broken screens or a damaged case.

Therefore, you need to destroy the PLC only when you know for sure that it is not Unitronics!  😜