Messages

Hi Mike, I once had a live to RS232 short in the back of one of the shells on a link cable. It killed pretty much everything including the PC PSU but amazingly, the PC was ok once I changed the PSU. On this system, the com ports were on the MB and unsurprisingly were not found by W98 any more, so I managed to add a 2 com port bord and got the thing up and going again.

It was a terrible idea! We ended up doing a periodic inspection on all feeder cables as a precaution. Im glad the box of bits came in useful!

Happy new year everyone!
I am having a bit of a tidy up and as a result I have found some RV bits that I had forgotten about:

10X8 feeder #1  Blue with tension screws With rear arm & short patch cable
10X8 feeder #2  Blue with tension screw With rear arm & short patch cable
10X8 feeder #3  Blue with tension screws With rear arm & short patch cable
10X8 feeder #4  Blue with tension screws With rear arm & short patch cable
5 x 8, 3 x 12 feeder Blue, no tension screw With rear arm & short patch cable
Vib feeder

All of the above were serviced in 2020 and have not been used since.

Spare bits
10 x 8 feeder, no arm, no PCB
Feeder bottom chassis only.
Box of feeder bits. Belts, spare arms, take up reels
Box of various cables inc feeder cables, control box cables etc
Box containing 10 x arm board, 5 x PC control board, 10 x dsp board, various metal parts, some new

I also have various new and used tools and other parts, message me if you are interested in any of the above

Thanks

Paul

Happy Friday everyone!

We have just decommissioned our last remaining Versatronics machine from production. I am going to go through it and give it a service before it goes for sale, its likely I will put it on ebay unless anyone on here is interested. It will be at the usual Cubik spec, so:

RV4S
W98 PC with SSD drive, Flat screen monitor, keyboard with trackpad, UPS
1 off Vib feeder, 3 off 10x8 feeders
Sold in working condition, with demo if required.

I was thinking, its probably about £500+Vat as a package, ready to do work.

I also have about 10 additional feeders of various types. I need to go through these but they were all serviced in 2020 and haven't done much work, so should be fine. £100 each plus the dreaded.

It will be a sad day when we let the last RV go but there we go, they have done a good turn!

I have about 10 feeders which we are looking to sell. Mostly 10 x 8 but I do have some others. All were serviced in 2020 and are tested and working. We usually sell the serviced feeders for £200 including link cable, message me if you are interested.

I also have quite a large spares stock which I am looking to clear out, if you need anything please message me and I will see if I have stock.

I always have stock of tools to original spec in stock.

Thanks

Paul

Does anyone have a nozzle rotate stepper motor that I could buy? Its a Sanyo 103-4505-7040

Many thanks

Paul

We are looking to replace some of our Versatronics lines soon so I will have some machines and ancillaries up for grabs.

The first machine that we will be taking off line is a Silver RV4S. This machine has been in use for many years and is totally reliable. It has a reasonably new PC (built 2018) with SSD, TFT monitor, keyboard with trackpad, full set of PCB supports and tools.

This machine will be going with 1 x Vib feeder and 3 x 10x8 feeders, all recently refurbished / serviced.

If you are interested please message me. The last one that I sold to this spec sold for £1500 with a VAT invoice.

Also, we have about 60 feeders of various types which we will gradually be servicing and selling, if you are interested, please let me know.

Thanks

These have just been relisted

I have an RV4S that you could buy if you are interested..

I intend to sell it serviced and haven't started it yet but will get on with it if you are interested. PM me.

Paul

Ref the USB mass storage driver, have a look for nusb36e - seems to work OK.

There are a few sites where you can download this but some seem to come with viruses. The .exe should be 970Kb (to fit on a FDD!)

Hi Trev,

I dont seem to have a message from you. Please could you resend?

Thanks

Paul

I have a couple of machines which I am looking to sell. We currently run 3 RV's but I have 7 machines in total and have been using these for many years so we know a bit about them. Machines for sale are:

1 x RV1S offers around £1250 plus VAT
1 x RV4S offers around £1500 plus VAT

Both will come serviced and working with 1 VIB and 2 x 10 x 8 feeders. PC'S will be a fresh build with SSD, TFT monitor, trackpad keyboard and ready to go to work. We will also supply both the Versatronics and VSMT manuals on paper with the unit. We could also offer installation if that would help.

We have A LOT of feeders, probably 40 banks or so, happy to put a package together for you to suit. All feeders have been recently serviced or will be serviced for sale.

If you are interested, please drop me a line.

With regard to Mikes OS that will not boot, I have seen this a few times when copying onto SSD.

I suggest that when you are testing this out to start off with, try installing W98 rather than copying your existing drive. To be honest, its really fast with an SSD, I have built machines from the ground up in 20 mins with an SSD rather than the usual 3 - 4 hours that it takes with an HDD

Im glad I wrote this, it seems like it has sparked some interest!

The reason that I used a raid card is that it has its own BIOS and mounts to the BIOS of the motherboard as "just another drive interface". I have tried other ways to achieve a reliable connection to a SSD, the described method has worked on every motherboard that i have tried so far. 

Another option which works sometimes is to use a PATA > SATA adapter, here is an example:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Livecity-SATA-Converter-Conversion-Adapter/dp/B0787SPXL6/ref=sr_1_30?ie=UTF8&qid=1544190149&sr=8-30&keywords=sata+pata+adapter

As I said, this seems to work with some motherboards but not all. I think this uses the same chipset as the one that Mike suggested.

I have been using WD Green SSD's, I havent tried any others. I like the idea of trying a PATA SSD, I may order one and try it out.

Paul

I have been working for some time to find a solution to the eternal RV PC issue. We have 3 RV's in daily use and I need to keep them running yet the biggest problem that we have seen is with the PC. I now have a solution and have all of our machines running new PC hardware with SSD's, all are networked and they seem much more stable than they have been for years.

This is not a cheep fix, I recon the PC's end up costing around £500 each but its amazing how much better they RV runs!

OK, you are never going to get away from W98, but it does run well on decent hardware and I see a bootup time of 4 seconds due to the SSD, even on a P4.

If you are interested please let me know and I will write it up and post it on here