At times, a Motion Control MDrive can appear to have a communications failure when it is merely in a mode that prevents it from responding to, or echoing back, instructions in IMS Terminal.
Settings that can cause this include Party Mode (PY=1), Checksum (CK=1), Echo Mode (EM=1or2) and incorrect Baud Rate (BD). Also check the scroll bar in the IMS Terminal window. If it is not all the way down, you may not see what the drive sends back.
When you have communications problems, the simplest fix may be to set your drive back to factory defaults using the instruction "FD". To prevent defaulting all the drives in your system, you may want to plug your communications cable into only the drive you are working on.
Make sure that you have good backup copy of the all variable settings and program before doing this.
By inserting a string of text into one of the function keys in a Terminal window in IMS Terminal, it can be sent to the drive as a continuous string of characters:
^MFD^M ^d1000 ^MCK=0...^M ^d1000 ^J*FD^J^d1000^J*FDÌ^J
To do this, open IMS Terminal and click on the terminal window. If there is no terminal window open, open one using View > New Terminal Window.
Right-click on the function key area at the bottom of the terminal window (right side of screen shot above). You should see a window that contains two columns: Captions and Contents.
Pick one of the function keys you don't need (F7 in this example) and type something like "Reset FD" into the Caption. Then highlight, cut and paste the string above into the Contents window of that row and click on Done. When that function key is pressed, the string will be sent. Note that there are delays in this string and it takes about 4 seconds to complete. When you are able to communicate with the drive, type "S" then a carriage return. This will save the defaults.
If you still haven't established communications, try setting IMS Terminal to different baud rates. This is done by Right-clicking the text area of the terminal window and selecting Preferences.
Then select the Comm Settings tab. Select the baud rate desired and make sure that the radio button for MDrive is selected. Select Done, then try your function key. You may have to try all the possible baud rates.
A description of baud rate is listed in the software manual alphabetically at BD (page 13 of manual).
It is also a good idea to read these additional notes:
