EPROMs nearing end of life?

Definitely make a copy. Then program a second copy of the EPROMS and swap them in to confirm the copy. If the copies are good, erase and reprogram the originals and keep as a spare.

Also replace any memory backup batteries while you are there.

You will probably be dead before you need the copies.

EPROMs are quite stable in my experience, however backing up and using the second set of EPROMs to run the product seems reasonable if a bit of overkill. Make a copy, archive it off-site and keep your burner in a safe place. I would simply use the originals until they gave me cause for doubt.

Also - do not erase the originals, simply reprogram (refresh) them after telling the programmer that the chips are not blank. EPROMs have a limited number of erase/burn cycles so why knock one cycle off? I do find that a number of originally good EPROMs (that had valid data) fail to reprogram after being erased.

I burn many classic EPROMs (2716s and up) and PROMs a month, so have some experience in this matter.

John :-#)#

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        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

I would agree with you on that except there are some programmers that will not permit you to program an EPROM that is not erased and does not have the option.

So I was just keeping it generic. Also burning a second copy allows you to confirm a good copy from the originals. Plus most of them are cheap.

I'd like to hear the theory behind that. Are you saying that a failed bit is never zero? Is programming a zero to zero the equivalent of twice the program pulse width? Is that less stressful than an erase?

EPROMs have a

If it's that close to failure, wouldn't you want to learn that now?

I understand the desire to do whatever you can to keep old equipment working, but this is getting mighty close to, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

No, if the thing is working why bother? Erasing and reprogramming doesn't prove anything and your burner may not do as good a job as the factory's rather expensive EPROM burner - which was likely a DATA 1/O 29 series with Gang Pack or possibly the DATA I/O Gang Programmer model 120 (early 80s).

In other words the erase and reprogram could result in a less reliable part than it was originally. I don't bother to refresh EPROMs, nor do I replace them until they fail. Seems pointless to me to do anything beyond double archiving the data.

There is a awful lot to be said for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it.". I see many game boards and arcade games where the owner thought it was a good idea to replace things that were still working. This sometimes results in an unrepairable (too many mistakes = too many hours to repair) game as they have made too many mistakes.

John :-#)#

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Greetings John, I just went through three weeks of frustration fixing this machine tool. The control maker, FANUC, said the problem was most likely not any part of the control. The lathe maker, Miyano, who married the control with the lathe said the problem was not likely to be on the machine side. The guy I spoke with at Miyano said that the lathes hardly ever need major work because they are so well built. And he is correct. The machine is a great machine. So good in fact that it would be worth it to put a new control on the thing if the old control failed. The problem turned out to be a circuit board that interfaces with the lathe. I bought a used board and swapped the EPROMs and now the machine is running again. FANUC says that the EPROMs on the board are hard to find replacements for so I want to get copies made. Since you copy many a month I was wondering if you do this service for others or just yourself. It might be less risky to pay and expert than to do the copying myself. Eric

Hi Eric,

I do archive EPROMs ($15US each plus shipping) however there are a some potential risks in shipping them to me.

1) My shop is in Canada - and Fedex/UPS/DHL all charge my shop customs import fees that can reach $40US. We normally have Americans (I am assuming you are in the USA) ship stuff to us by US Post as the import fees (if that happens) is around $7US.

2) Stuff gets lost in transit. Rare, but can you afford to lose the EPROMs?

3) Handling. Do you have anti-static foam and an anti-static bag, or IC anti-static tubes that you can ship these in?

What city are you in? I can ask on the Data I/O mail list to see if anyone in your city can help you. Likely a small case of beer or bottle of wine would suffice for that person...

John :-#)#

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        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

Greetings John, I didn't know you were in Canada. I'm in Clinton which is on the south end of Whidbey Island. I'm north of Seattle about 30 miles as the crow (supposedly) flies. Pretty much anywhere in the Puget Sound area is OK and I am willing to drive, along with a case beer or some good wine, to get the things copied. Maybe I can even do a little machine work for someone. Thanks a bunch for making the offer to contact someone. Cheers, Eric

If you want to come North to Canada and visit my shop I'm sure we can work something out.

Note that unless you are a refugee you do have to go back...

John ;-#)#

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        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

That's a little longer of a drive than I was considering. And I've heard that the border crossing is even worse than the summer ferry lines to Whidbey. On the other hand my wife and I like Canada and Canadians. And Vancouver. Years ago we went to Vancouver to see the Phantom of the Opera musical. We had booked a room at a small but pretty swanky hotel. I have forgotten the name though. Anyway, when we tried to check in our room was occupied. They had goofed but didn't tell us. They said there was a slight delay in getting the room ready and asked us to wait in the bar with drinks on the house. After a couple hours my wife and I were getting impatient. So we asked when the room would be ready and they explained their goof up. Unable to find us a room comparable to the one we reserved they instead put us up in the penthouse. I don't even want to know how much that room was per night. It was certainly very nice, with a bedroom, two bathrooms, a living room, a long balcony, and a kitchen. Canadian hospitality, gotta love it. Eric

My wife and I went down twice to the US (Burlington area) to adopt a rescue dog (A nice Saluki!) and both times the border crossings were under 20 minutes. This was on the last two Wednesdays in March. Weekends can have long lineups - sometimes up to an hour. Holidays are worse. There are signs showing you an estimated wait time as you approach the border (both sides) and you can go one of the two alternate truck crossings where the time may be shorter.

Hope you like playing pinball!

John :-#)#

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        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

When I worked for a paper mill we had a machine lose memory, lightning storm I think. The Allen Bradley PLC had an EEPROM backup so we uploaded the program from it.

Counterintuitively to the maintenance section, "upload" to A-B means upload FROM the PLC, not TO the PLC. So we loaded the empty program into the EPROM, erasing it.

Not a problem, we had another EEPROM safely locked in a cabinet in the office.

Of course we repeated the same mistake on our only backup.

Where I worked we had lots of the AB PLCs. Seems to me that they did many things backwards from more normal thinking,or what other companies were doing.

What I really hated about them was if a card went bad you had to shut down the whole PLC system. Something difficult to do and keep the process from going bad. Much perferred some of the other equipment where you could hot swap the bad card. When there are 30 to 50 cards involved and each one has 8 to 16 production items on it, it can make a mess out of production.

Ouch. I have done similar mistakes. That is why I have both on site and off site backups these days.

John :-#(#

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        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

tool. "

I've found that usually corrupt data is caused by the circuitry, not the EE PROM itself. However your unit is old enough it may have actually failed. W hen things get old, things get weird sometimes. You see extremely uncommon failure modes and sometimes those "gremlins".

Where I used to work they bought an EEPROM copier cheap. Maybe twenty bucks , but it could not do everything. It did what we needed but it did say that certain types of chips need to be erased before they can be copied onto. T he ones in the equipment we worked on did not need to be erased.

These units have a mechanical power switch, so I suspect that sometime the corruption is from turning it off at the wrong time. They are Karaoke playe rs and usually the USB and SD puts became deaf dumb and blind. I had a whol e set of them with good data to copy from.

I am somewhat surprised you found a used board for that thing. But since yo u did you probably should copy the data to either the old EEPROM or a new, compatible one for backup. If it happens once, it can happen again.

I really hadn't heard of that brad of lathe, but if it has Timken bearing, hardened ways and all that it is probably worth keeping for life. That is i f you have a use for it. I used to have two lathes but then realized they h ad been used maybe once in five years I sold them off. Plus I need the room .

import fees that can reach $40US. We normally have Americans (I am assuming you are in the USA) ship stuff to us by US Post as the import fees (if that happens) is around $7US. "

What happened to NAFTA ? Is that only for stuff coming into the US ?

The lathe is a great machine and a real money maker. When it runs that is. 15 HP spindle. One type of job I do on it, 3 and 5 inch diameter sheaves made from 6061 aluminum, sends the spindle load meter to 120% for each of the roughing cuts. The chips coming off spray the door like a sandblaster. Man, I love hearing that. The Miyano rep told me that they hardly ever need mechanical servicing. The spindle cartridge is designed so that as it heats up it doesn't expand into the machining envelope so there is no dimensional change to parts in the Z axis. Right now I am running a part, also from 6061, that has almost all the material removed. I load 4 foot long 1.25" diameter stock in the spindle tube. 2 inches stick out from the collet. The part ends up being 1.65" long, .25" daimeter but for a .200 thick knurled disc near the middle. After the machining is done the piece is parted off and a parts catcher swings out, catches the part, and drops it in a tray outside of the machining envelope. Cycle time is 47 seconds. Another job I do is cutting an o-ring groove on the underside of

1/4-20 flat head 304 stainless screws. The groove is normal to the 82 degree included angle of the head. The groove edges have a .004" radius machined on them to avoid sharp edges. 7 second cycle time. I'm gonna have to get the EPROMS copied soon as possible. First though I need to get all the late jobs finished. Eric

First, I think it only applies to things made in the US or Canada. SO much is made elsewhere, it doesn't count. I can look in the LL Bean catalog and think "that's a nice thing to have" but most of the time the fine print says "made in China" or elsewhere. And that doesn't count as US made.

But in this case, it's an issue specific to the courrier companies. If something comes into Canada through the post office, it may slip through, but generally you'll need to pay import duty. That's not too bad.

But the courier companies charge some fee to process the paperwork, or something like that. It's been going on for a long time, some one orders from the US, doesn't pay much attention, and then suddenly they have to pay this big charge just to get it into the country, the duty may be on top of that. It comes as a surprise, until it happens, and then you pay attention and avoid companies that don't ship via the post office.

Michael

Nothing to do with NAFTA. There is no duty, however the couriers still charge $25 to $45 Customs Clearance Fee for carrying the stuff across the border into Canada. Large companies like Digi-Key deal with this sort of thing differently, but for smaller businesses and individuals that clearance fee can be an unfriendly reminder that the Post Office is the best deal for shipping internationally.

We don't ship al lot to the US by courier, mostly Post and I haven't heard back from our US customers that they have been charged clearance fees for getting their products. Even the few packages that go by Fedex seem to enter the US without a fee.

Grumble.

John :-#(#

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        "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."