AB 1305 Drive Password

We have an AB 1305 frequency drive in which someone inadvertently set the password. Does anyone know how to reset it to eliminate the password?

Call yor A-B rep. He surely can support you.

Archie

Silly question really - are you sure the password has been changed from its default value of 0. perhaps they just programmed it to ask for the password on start up.

just a thought

Paul

AB support? You must be kidding. I was hoping to get this problem fixed this week with the cost less than replacing the drive.

As for the default password, we tried everything from 0 through 10 thinking that someone just hit the wrong key and changing it to a single digit.

Archie,
I am not sure if this will work since I have never had to try it before, but the following is taken directly from the AB drive manual:

After entering the "Password Mode"

The factory default password is 0 (which disables password protection). To
change the password and enable password protection, perform the
following steps.

• From the Status Display, press Enter (or any key). “Choose Mode” will be shown.
• Press the Increment (or Decrement) key until “Password” is displayed.
• Press Enter.
• Press the Increment (or Decrement) key until “Modify” is displayed.
• Press Enter. “Enter Password” will be displayed.
• Press the Increment (or Decrement) key to scroll to your desired new password. With Series A HIM software versions 3.00 and above or
  Series B HIM software version 1.01 and above, the SEL key allows
  each digit to be selected and changed individually.
• Press Enter to save your new password.
• Press Enter again to return to the Password Mode.
  [/list=a]

• 
  If I am reading this right, you should at least be able to find what the password is this way.
  
  Steve

I dont have the 1305 specifically but I gots lots of AB drives and some others. Most of them will allow you to modify password but its not displayed to be seen. And if it needs a password then you must enter it before you can change it.

BUT

There is a cheat in some cases. DO NOT DO THIS unless you have the settings for the drive OR know how to reset the drive. MOST drives have a way to be reset to DEFAULT ...ie the way it came from the factory. The 1305 I dont know specifically but in most cases you just have to push certain buttons on powerup, the manual may have this info, if not AB support can tell you. I had to do this recently with a AB 1336 and a Eurotherm 590.

I see the conundrum you're in; you can't get to the EEPROM function menu that removes the password (as well as resetting all other parameters) if there's already a password set. The Program and Clear Fault Queue menus are similarly unavailable if you have a password set.

The Password menu doesn't offer a "I forgot my password" option... it wouldn't be much of a password if it did.

Which do you suppose is more likely to be the solution:

1. You have to throw away the drive and buy a new one.

2. You have to manually try every possible 4-digit number until you find the right one.

3. A-B technical support knows an unpublished technique that allows you to reset the password to zero without changing any other parameters. Every drives technical specialist at every A-B authorized distributor in the world also knows this technique.

Hmm. Good thing you made fun of A-B technical support in your followup post. We always like a little ridicule to start our Fridays.

Ken Roach said:

Hmm. Good thing you made fun of A-B technical support in your followup post. We always like a little ridicule to start our Fridays.

Click to expand...

Ken,

There are days when I think you must be a masochist for logging on to this message board. Lucky for the rest of us, though, because you're always willing to send a polite reply anyway!

AK

Ken is the man, he just doesnt care for the AB bashing, cant say I blame him, they pay his bills. Time everyone just faces the fact that AB is what it is, high priced sure, but its damn good stuff.

Time everyone just faces the fact that AB is what it is

Click to expand...

Yap! They shure are , arrogant, fat cats and aboard a sinking ship. The best thing they do and it's unsurpassed in the industrie it's marketing.

I'm not saying there equipment is not good, it's there people. No one companie can have this piece of shoots service and survive the long run.

To bad, 10 years ago it used to be fun dealing with them.

And Ken, you fergot this...

4. Call your local AB specialist which will tell you he does not know of any magic trick... you find out he just in sales. The he advises you to phone this real specialist and you do but he does not know either because... well he's just in sales. Then you phone the AB regional office and he tells you "Your call is important to us, don't hang up... bla bla." You wait 60 minutes on the line but your lucky, the guy you talk to he knows there inside specialist and he'll get you two on the phone... but you find out he does not know any of this cause... he's in sales... FUX they do have a lot of people in sales. And then you give up, you calle the big AB office in the sky... you tell the hole thing to this person which seems technically oriented and you find after 15 minutes that hes a darn secretairy who gives you a service request number... They will call you back... 1 million days later they do call back and they aske you if this service is still needed ... "you say of course" and they tell you an engeneer will call you back ... and he does a few hours later...

-"Hi sir I'm Arnold Barney, what can I do for you?"

You go on telling him what the problem is ... and then he tels you A-B technical support knows an unpublished technique that allows you to reset the password to zero without changing any other parameters. Every drives technical specialist at every A-B authorized distributor in the world also knows this technique.

You wait until he tels you the magic trick, then you tell him ...

But of course, this 4th possibility is finction and any similarity with a living person would be a stroke of bad luck.... would'n it?

Ok, Pierre, you have expressed your opinion, and I am not judging you badly YET. But since this is a technical website, and most of us here are logical thinkers......

What PLC product should I use to circumvent the problems the problems that you have previously experienced with AB.

Myself personally do not find AB worse than any other product on the market. Boy did I cuss and scream during the early versions of RSLogix however. And those damn salesman that sell device net. Oh, do I hate devicenet, and device net manager software. Man.... I got some bad memories there.

If Modicon and Siemens didn't suck so bad I might be right on that AB sucks train with you. BUT

AB has actually been the best product overall (not looking at the price, of course).

I seriously would like to hear about the good PLC product that you must be referring to.

I haven't tried them all, but everything I have tried, makes AB look sweeter and sweeter. Sorry to all you AB haters out there.

Also, Thank you very very much Ken, for your help here.

Pierre my friend, perhaps its just the operator.

Wow, yet another thread spirals out of control.

I'm sorry I was so snotty to Archie yesterday. I'd just gotten back from vacation and had been driving since 4 AM to make it to the office so I could catch up with specific customers before the weekend hit (both DeviceNet users, Pierre !). His shot at A-B support clearly concealed some past injury, but it still made me unprofessionally crabby and I apologize for my sarcasm.

I'd like to focus attention back on the 1305 drive and it's inadvertent password.

Regardless of your previous experience with A-B pricing, management, networking, or Sales, this particular fact of the Password Reset is an "open secret" at A-B Support. My "consider the options" was supposed to be a way to get Archie to reason that there has to be a mostly-painless way to reset the drive.

Sure, there's a worst-case: Support might decide by policy to keep the Password Reset technique to themselves and force Archie to buy a 4-hour minimum block of field engineer's time to come reset the drive onsite.

So, Archie, if you're working on this sunny Saturday, drop an e-mail to the address in my PLCS.NET profile and I'll make sure you get taken care of on this 1305 drive right away.

Hey! Don't get me wrong on this one. The fact of the mather is that I do like to have AB around.

And Ken, when you say;

"but it still made me unprofessionally crabby and I apologize for my sarcasm."

Please do not change any of your attitudes. You are not here as a professional but as a human being. I do deserve sarcasms, I do deserve the told how near sitted I am, I deserve your (and any other honest participant) your opinions.

When I post in this site, I don't feel like I'm participating in a Miss America type peagant ... I whish peace on earth and everybody should love ... blablabla...

If you ever thinck that I could put some unjustified blames onto any companies just because I have one past event bloking my mind, you are all wrong. When I post some flamette like in this post, you should all smile at it.

Then maybee you will think "How out in left field his this guy?"

Nothing is always black or whyte, it's a multitude of shades of grey.

Ken is the man, he just doesnt care for the AB bashing, cant say I blame him, they pay his bills.

Click to expand...

See, this is what I call bashing. And it's also personal. How could we insinuate that Ken could be dishonest because Arnold Barney signs his paycheck?

I find his post very professional and I do smile a lot.

I, for one, would have been much more sarcastic at somebody who would not have tought about a manufacturers back-door into a system. I could have made jokes at Archie for not trying this path.

Of course he will have to pay a few hundreds to get this magic trick. And of course he would have been mad about it but this is the price you have to pay to be in the Big Leagues.

Ab is definetly in the big leagues. I just hope they don't have the same accounting firms has Wolrdcom

q argumentuit with the personal

I cant beleive you guys turning this place to a soap opera which is not part of helping people.Stay with the issue help or dont help period.

If AB would be arrogant about it then complain to the head affice and all of us can come together and address this issue to the main office.Maybe they can help us you know united we stand..