Hunter Alignment Machine G111

[Twistedgearhead]

I am in the process of restoring an old Hunter G111 alignment machine and am having some hiccups with some of the hardware and software, does anybody have a service manual they would share with me?
I have tried contacting Hunter several times and they will either not respond or tell me they don't offer manuals call the service tech.
Kind of crummy they won't share an outdated manual with a consumer.

 

[PDM]

Oh boy that's an old unit.

Most often you need to contact your local Hunter service rep but afaik that machine is really old.


There was a thread on this forum back several years about a similar situation but there was talk of floppy discs which dates the system.

Ps I hope you didn't spend a lot of money on that machine - you can locate much newer Hunter units for real cheap online. I bought a 511 unit earlier this year for around $600 complete with wireless heads.


View media item 108683

 

[Twistedgearhead]

I picked this one up cheap, up to this point I've got less than $200 into the machine.

 

[Twistedgearhead]

Looking for info/manuals still

 

[Twistedgearhead]

Specifically for main board and floppy board

 

[Twistedgearhead]

Board numbers are:
45-535-1 Floppy
45-417-1 Main

 

[Twistedgearhead]

Boards and errors

 

[Twistedgearhead]

I have since replaced the Dallas backup battery/ram chip and re-socketed the floppy controller chip.

 

[Twistedgearhead]

Without a manual or schematic I am kind of shooting in the dark, as there are internal traces on these boards.

 

[Twistedgearhead]

I have also tried 3 identical replacement floppy drives 2 of which were brand new. Also have a brand new software disk as well.

 

[Twistedgearhead]

Well I got the machine up and running, even got the disk emulated so it is now running on USB. However I have a problem with one of the heads now. Does anybody have a manual or schematics for these heads?

 

[rodnok1]

Know it's been months but what problem do you have with that head.
If completely dead crack open check for blown capacitors. Have you verified the cable is good. I have a couple that the actual ports are flaky at best, i took the ports apart and cleaned thd pins.
I started a forum for old alignment machines, there may be a manual to hekp out there.

Hunter Machines | Oldalignmentmachines

Info, repair advice and manuals for old Hunter Alignment Machines

oldalignmentmachines.proboards.com

 

[tanman98]

probably a dead thread, but what did you end up doing to get past the system battery ram segment invalid issue? i am having this issue and not sure if its the floppy or what

 

[gmbaird]

probably a dead thread, but what did you end up doing to get past the system battery ram segment invalid issue? i am having this issue and not sure if its the floppy or what

I don't think the battery RAM fault will keep it from booting, at least not on the H111 machine I have. I believe that relates to a clock chip that has a built in battery which eventually goes dead and won't save clock/date settings, so if you power off you lose date/time. The OP's problem looks like it hangs on reading the floppy. I had read errors similar to his, but I received a few other floppy disks with the machine and was able to find a few that would read and boot.

 

[tanman98]

I don't think the battery RAM fault will keep it from booting, at least not on the H111 machine I have. I believe that relates to a clock chip that has a built in battery which eventually goes dead and won't save clock/date settings, so if you power off you lose date/time. The OP's problem looks like it hangs on reading the floppy. I had read errors similar to his, but I received a few other floppy disks with the machine and was able to find a few that would read and boot.

Thanks, I bought a new floppy and it actually didn't read it at all, put the old floppy back in and it gets farther but still "cannot find startup program, check floppy"

 

[gmbaird]

Thanks, I bought a new floppy and it actually didn't read it at all, put the old floppy back in and it gets farther but still "cannot find startup program, check floppy"

I still think you have a bad floppy, as you are reading off the floppy for sure if you get to the "Loading Startup Program". I got about 12 with the machine I bought at auction and only a few will boot the machine. These are genuine Hunter disks, some still in sealed packaging. The picture is a normal boot on one of the disks that worked, and I was able to make working copies using some free software. I have disks that don't work that **** out at various points during boot, such as at the "Loading Display Manager", with a floppy read error.

 

[bcschief]

Here is an Ebay disc https://www.ebay.com/itm/2648675821...S6tq1Fe8GY7if5J+1TqMz62g==|tkp:Bk9SR67V3bvHZQ

 

[tanman98]

I still think you have a bad floppy, as you are reading off the floppy for sure if you get to the "Loading Startup Program". I got about 12 with the machine I bought at auction and only a few will boot the machine. These are genuine Hunter disks, some still in sealed packaging. The picture is a normal boot on one of the disks that worked, and I was able to make working copies using some free software. I have disks that don't work that **** out at various points during boot, such as at the "Loading Display Manager", with a floppy read error.

Ok thanks! I got a new disk from the guy on eBay that writes them, same disk that was in the machine and functioning when I bought it, but the new one just said floppy boot error, and the old one can't find the startup program, I will see if he is willing to return the disk and make me a new one.

Here is an Ebay disc https://www.ebay.com/itm/264867582127?_skw=hunter+g111&itmmeta=01JRXVQDAHBR1RM4XWFAJ94PJ4&hash=item3dab5690af:g:~DEAAOSwInVXHj7z&itmprp=enc:AQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1cX4SZ9b87S6cdQqY8KsqCSEA/sdhp61AIO18nkA/vMY71sf6EXGd2SNNx3EV+D/RTPzjw+YZR0Zu7gj36xFpFP5Gu3RV7vRvFAQiVTMSv2kCA9HD+EpNV2NohguY0p2678dAQ/8Ope+bKt+etOsrEgbMGJrnoNy1b06IySuvVrJzO6y7CddoM2GdZJjvgmdR1+NFbrc2r7Whuh1K90eCbTKxST/ycQGitL1ey+4HBiYJEeXjZK9lhYQzMW9nC+G8rRNOS6yAsHSzjfU19P+xS6tq1Fe8GY7if5J+1TqMz62g==|tkp:Bk9SR67V3bvHZQ

Yeah that's the one I bought. And didn't work and he said the drive might be dirty, I tried cleaning it with no change.

 

[gmbaird]

Ok thanks! I got a new disk from the guy on eBay that writes them, same disk that was in the machine and functioning when I bought it, but the new one just said floppy boot error, and the old one can't find the startup program, I will see if he is willing to return the disk and make me a new one.

Yeah that's the one I bought. And didn't work and he said the drive might be dirty, I tried cleaning it with no change.

Do you have access to an old Windows computer that has an internal floppy drive?

 

[tanman98]

Do you have access to an old Windows computer that has an internal floppy drive?

I do not, he told me if I tried to access it with Windows or linux the disk would be no good.

 

[gmbaird]

I do not, he told me if I tried to access it with Windows or linux the disk would be no good.

I wasn't suggesting you do anything with the disk you got off of Ebay. The fact that you don't get as far in the boot believes me to think there is something wrong with the Ebay disk. I was going to suggest that you use the free software called samdisk to scan your semi-working disk for errors, first write protecting so that you don't accidentally write to the disk, and see what kind of errors you get. All of the disks that I had that wouldn't boot, or wouldn't boot reliably, had crc errors. The ones that would boot, and the ones I was able to copy, scanned with no errors. If you had a working floppy drive I would send you a disk image that you could use samdisk to write the image onto a blank floppy, but without the floppy hardware you're stuck trying to find a working disk.

 

[tanman98]

Just an update, got another new disk. No luck. The oldest disk states" Kernel version 4.1 ?cannot find startup program -- check floppy disk"
The fist disk i bought, numbers matching, simply goes straight to "floppy boot read error. Insert startup disk then press any key."
And the Newest disk, from the same ebay guy and again matching numbers, sais "disk is not a startup disk." or something along those lines, i forgot to take a photo.