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Output | Software Solutions | Proofing | Color, Screening and Calibration | Scanning | Digital Photography | Consumables | POS
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Quick Reference | Firmware Engineering Links
abort -- Sends an unconditional abort to all subsystems. The drum, carriage, autoloader, and all other moving subsystems are stopped. Brings the recorder to an idle, safe state as soon as possible.
act aknife on|off -- Turns the unloading-assistance air knife on or off. This is only used on VLF Trendsetters equipped with the film option, and blows air under the film as it is unloading so as to lift it up onto the load/unload table.
act bal1 on|off -- Controls the balance weight #1 solenoid and cylinder. "On" will extend the cylinder towards the drum and "off" will retract it. WARNING: Do not use while the drum is turning!
act bal2 on|off -- Controls the balance weight #2 solenoid and cylinder. "On" will extend the cylinder towards the drum and "off" will retract it. WARNING: Do not use while the drum is turning!
act beep on|off -- Turns on or off the beeper located by the operator interface.
act dblow on|off -- Turns the debris blower solenoid on or off. The solenoid in turn blows air out of a little nozzle located at the front on the thermal imaging head for the removal of any debris created while imaging.
act drcl on|off -- Turns on or off the "Close" air solenoid for closing the plate door. Note that the "Open" air solenoid must be off before the door can be closed.
act drlr on|off -- Turns on or off the air solenoid for the drum roller. "On" will retract the roller towards the drum and "off" will extend it away from the drum. WARNING: Do not turn this on while the drum is turning!
act drop on|off -- Turns on or off the "Open" air solenoid for opening the plate door. Note that the "Close" air solenoid must be off before the door can be opened.
act erfl on|off -- Turns on or off the "flashing" output for the red "Error" indicator light on the operator interface panel. This output is OR'd with the "ersol" (solid) output, so when both are on at the same time the light will be solid, not flashing.
act ersol on|off -- Turns on or off the "solid" output for the red "Error" indicator light on the operator interface panel. This output is OR'd with the "erfl" (flashing) output, so when both are on at the same time the light will be solid, not flashing.
act imfl on|off -- Turns on or off the "flashing" output for the yellow "Imaging" indicator light on the operator interface panel. This output is OR'd with the "imsol" (solid) output, so when both are on at the same time the light will be solid, not flashing.
act imsol on|off -- Turns on or off the "solid" output for the yellow "Imaging" indicator light on the operator interface panel. This output is OR'd with the "imfl" (flashing) output, so when both are on at the same time the light will be solid, not flashing.
act idfl on|off -- Turns on or off the "flashing" output for the green "Loading" indicator light on the operator interface panel. This output is OR'd with the "ldsol" (solid) output, so when both are on at the same time the light will be solid, not flashing.
act idsol on|off -- Turns on or off the "solid" output for the green "Loading" indicator light on the operator interface panel. This output is OR'd with the "ldfl" (flashing) output, so when both are on at the same time the light will be solid, not flashing.
act lecext on|off -- Turns on or off the "Extend" air solenoid for extending the hinged LE actuator bar down towards the TE clamps, putting the LE actuator into a "ready to use" position. "On" will enable the solenoid and "off" will disable the solenoid. Note that the "Retract" air solenoid must be off before the actuator can be extended. WARNING: Do not turn this on while the TE actuator bar is down!
act lecret on|off -- Turns on or off the "Retract" air solenoid for retracting the hinged LE actuator bar away from the TE clamps, effectively putting the LE actuator into a "stored" position. "On" will enable the solenoid and "off" will disable the solenoid. Note that the "Extend" air solenoid must be off before the actuator can be retracted. WARNING: Do not turn this on while the LE clamps are opened!
act tbdn on|off -- Turns on or off the "Down" air solenoid for lowering the load/unload table. Note that the "Up" air solenoid must be off before the table can be lowered. When both the "Up" and "Down" solenoids are off, the table is idle and will move freely up or down. CAUTION: Do not turn this on when the plate door is closed and the table is up, or when the table is up and the "Up" solenoid is not on. The table air cylinder MUST be pressurized is the opposite direction you want to move it, or else the table will slam into place.
act tbup on|off -- Turns on or off the "Up" air solenoid for raising the load/unload table. Note that the "Down" air solenoid must be off before the table can be raised. When both the "Up" and "Down" solenoids are off, the table is idle and will move freely up or down. CAUTION: Do not turn this on when the plate door is closed and the table is down, or when the table is down and the "Down" solenoid is not on. The table air cylinder MUST be pressurized is the opposite direction you want to move it, or else the table will slam into place.
act tec on|off -- Turns on or off the air solenoid for the trailing edge (TE) clamp actuator bar. "On" will retract the actuator bar towards the drum and "off" will extend it away from the drum. This command is identical on all CTP machines with the exception of the VLF Trendsetter, where the leading edge (LE) clamp actuator bar is combined onto the TE actuator bar. In that case, this command will also raise or lower the LE clamp actuator depending on whether or not the hinged LE actuator is extended down. WARNING: Do not turn this on while the drum is turning!
act tecul on|off -- Turns on or off the air solenoid for the TE clamp locking mechanism. "On" will unlock the TE clamps and "off" will lock them. WARNING: Do not turn this on while the TE bar is off the drum and the clamps are on the bar!
act tvgen on|off -- Turns on or off the "Generate" air solenoid for the plate vacuum on the unload/load table. Note that the "Release" air solenoid must be off before the vacuum will turn on.
act tvrel on|off -- Turns on or off the "Release" air solenoid for the plate vacuum on the unload/load table. Note that the "Generate" air solenoid must be off before the vacuum will turn off.
ale [init] -- As "ale" stands for "autoloader electronics", this command can be used to display the general autoloader system status or to initialize the autoloader system. Use "ale" to display the status, consisting of the system air pressure and engine temperature. Use "ale init" to initialize the complete autoloader system. This is identical to the initialization sequence the machine goes through after power-up, or before a manual load or unload command if there is no workstation connected. The "table init" and "engine init" commands are subsets of the full initialization.
bal [find|move] -- Displays status of or controls the balance weights.
carriage away -- Moves the carriage at maximum speed towards the away switch. Note that issuing this command will often result in loss of carriage position accuracy, since the carriage will usually be stopped while travelling at maximum speed.
carriage home -- Moves the carriage to position 0 which is nominally 5 mm from the home switch. It will only move to the home switch if the carriage is not already initialized.
carriage idle -- The carriage is stopped immediately and all current is removed from the motor (i.e. no holding torque is applied). This command will cause the carriage subsystem to lose track of its position and requires initialization.
carriage init -- The carriage subsystem is reinitialized regardless of whether it is necessary or not.
carriage (move <velocity> [cau|sps]) -- The carriage moves at the specified <velocity>. A positive velocity moves the carriage towards the away switch and a negative velocity moves it towards the home switch. The velocity is specified in mils per second unless either the cau or sps option is used. This command truncates the specified carriage speed to the nearest 8 mils/s.
carriage moveto <position> [cau] [<speed>] -- Moves the carriage to a specified <position>. If the cau keyword is left out, <position> is specified in mils as measured from position 0. If the cau keyword is added, <position> is specified in "counts". The carriage moves to position at <speed> mils/second. If <speed> is not specified, it defaults to maximum. The value of <position> is an unsigned real number and <speed> is an unsigned integer.
carriage stop -- The carriage is stopped immediately and a holding torque is applied. Although the carriage will not lose complete track of its position with this command, the accuracy of its position may suffer if the carriage was moving too fast when the stop command was issued. The edge_speed NVS parameter (set carriage espeed) is a good indicator of the maximum speed at which the carriage can be stopped without degrading its positional accuracy.
clear -- Use this to tell the autoloader system to not bother trying that last part of whatever command it was working on before it got an error and suspended. In other words, to "clear" from the current command. This command will only do something if the autoloader is indeed suspended.
drum hold -- Holds the drum at its current position with maximum torque. The servo stops holding if the drum moves by more than 100 (6?) position counts or if the required drive current is at a maximum for too long.
drum idle -- Removes all current from the drum motor, i.e., no holding torque is applied. The drum is not braked even if spinning at a high speed.
drum init -- Initializes the drum subsystem. This drum is automatically initialized at the beginning of the first drum operation after a power-up or a reset.
drum move
drum soft -- Holds the drum at its current position with a soft torque.
drum spin [<velocity>] [c] -- Rotates the drum at the specified velocity.
drum stop [h] [p] -- Stops the drum in less than one rotation and idles the drum if the h option is not specified. The drum servo actively brakes the drum.
drum tick <threshold%> -- Measures the tick width by spinning the drum at 8 rpm and timing the passage of each tick. VLF drums must be fairly well balanced for this command to work. Turn off the power and move the balance weights and/or TEC till the drum is balanced. A good starting point is the TECs parked and balance weights both on the opposite side to the TEC/LEC.
For instructions on finding a dirt spot on the encoder disc using the "drum tick" command, See the Firmware Engineering drum tick page.
engine [init] -- Displays the status of, or initializes, the imaging engine. If just "engine" is entered, then the status of the entire engine and everything near it is displayed. This includes the plate door, unload/load table, operator interface, system air pressure, and various cable detect inputs.
flush [resume|clear] -- Flushes all image commands and plates from the system.
getclamp park|tec -- Gets the magnetic trailing edge (TE) clamps from the drum and up onto the actuator bar. Use "getclamp park" to retrieve them from the park position, or "getclamp tec" to get them from the last plate's clamping position.
lec [on|off] -- Gets the magnetic trailing edge (TE) clamps from the drum and up onto the actuator bar. Use "getclamp park" to retrieve them from the park position, or "getclamp tec" to get them from the last plate's clamping position.
list macros -- Displays the list of 26 single character abbreviations to many commonly-used commands. When a single alphabetic character is entered at the Diagnostic Monitor, it is interpreted as a macro and the appropriate substitution is made.
list map -- Displays the memory map for the MPE. The lowercase identifiers are the names that are used for the
list pattern [<n>] -- Displays a list of the built-in test patterns available.
list status -- Displays a summary of the recorder's current state.
list sys -- Displays information about the system memory usage.
list version -- Displays a list of firmware and hardware version information. This command is very useful for debugging problems with the satellite board SPI chain, as it reads and displays the satellite board version registers.
load -- Manually loads a plate onto the drum. There are three basic ways to enter this command:
mask off <flag #> -- If the off option is used, the mask for the specified
mask on <flag #> -- The status flag corresponding to the listed <flag> number will be masked. Masking a flag means that even if there is a problem with the component, no error will be reported directly.
mode media <media number> -- Changes the current diagnostic media type to <media_#>.
nvs dump -- Displays all active, saved, and default parameters. The display does not pause for viewing, but you can stop the scrolling on the display by pressing Esc.
nvs load <subsys> [<index>] [cal|cfg] -- Restores the active values of a subsystem's parameters from saved values.
nvs save <subsys> [<index>] [cal|cfg|
nvs save all <password> -- Saves all the active parameters for all subsystems. This command should be used carefully, since it is easy to unintentionally overwrite previously saved values.
nvs upgrade <previous version> -- Saves all the active parameters for all subsystems. This command should be used carefully, since it is easy to unintentionally overwrite previously saved values.
pdoor [open|close] -- Moves or displays the status of the plate entry/exit door. To open the door type "pdoor open" and to close it type "pdoor close". Just typing "pdoor" all by itself will show the status of the plate door sensors. The command will look for the appropriate plate door sensors to ensure the move was successful, and will automatically look for the intermediate (or "halfway") sensors if the load/unload table is lifted up.
putclamp -- Puts the magnetic trailing edge (TE) clamps onto at the park position, just below the leading edge clamps.
reset boot -- Resets the software so that the boot monitor starts up but does not transfer control to the application software.
reset head -- Resets the exposure head. This is a "cold" reset since software and hardware are reset unconditionally.
resume -- Use this to tell the autoloader system to resume, or try again, that last part of whatever command it was working on before it got an error and suspended. This command will only do something if the autoloader is indeed suspended.
rlr [on|off] -- Moves & displays the status for the drum roller. Use the parameter "on" to lower the roller, "off" to raise it, and no parameters to display the status of its sensors.
rlr [on|off] -- Moves & displays the status for the drum roller. Use the parameter "on" to lower the roller, "off" to raise it, and no parameters to display the status of its sensors.
table [[move] [up|down]|idle|init|[vac [on|off]]] -- Moves & displays the status for the load/unload table on the VLF Trendsetter. For safety reasons the table normally will not automatically move itself, but there are commands here to allow that. This allows for remote diagnostics and cycle testing. Following are the variations of this command:
tec [on|off|lock|unlock] -- Moves & displays the status for the trailing edge clamp (TEC) actuator bar. Use the parameter "on" to lower the bar, "off" to raise it, "lock" to lock onto the TE clamps, and "unlock" to release the clamps. If no parameters are given, then the status of the TEC actuator sensors will be displayed. Note that on the VLF Trendsetter the TEC actuator bar is used to open and close the LE clamps when the hinged LE actuator bar is down.
time engine|table|picker -- Automatically moves & measures the actuation times for various air-cylinder systems. On the VLF Trendsetter this includes the engine and table actuators. Caution: Make sure the drum is not moving before executing a "time engine"!
unload -- Manually unloads a plate from the drum. If the plate status is labelled as a "flyoff" in "plate_loc d status", then you will be prompted as to whether it's really safe to unload the plate or not. This is awfully handy when the plate is partially unclamped but still safe to unload, or when something else (like your hand) has caused a false flyoff.