OT Alvey gantry palletizer help needed

We have an older model Alvey palletizer Model 502, which is controlled
by a Win95 PC running a visual basic program.

Sunday night the hard drive on the PC died and our back up is corrupt.
Alvey emailed a copy of the VB program and it is corrupt also.

Alvey no longer sells or supports the VB application, we were able to contact the original programmer, (he no longer does programming) and he is installing a new roof on his house and can't leave home.

Is there anyone outthere than can get us back running, by reprogramming what we have, or upgrading to an off the shelf pacakage such as steeplechase.

We are down, desperate, and willing to entertain any possible solution.

Send me a PM if you think you can help, and we will discuss.

Ken Moore

Update:
The visual basic program interfaces with OPTO-22 I/0, which controls the system.

More info later.

Did they send you the VB executable or the source code? Could the 'corrupt' VB file simply be an application that is so old that it won't run under a newer OS? If its the source code files, could it be a VB3 application that you'r trying to open with VB6 or VB.net?

I know your message was posted some time ago, but

Ken,

How did you come to a resolution to your problem? I used to work for Alvey and more specifically, the robotics group. I'm surprised the Gantry Group would not help out or did you deal with the Service Group? They used to be called COP and now are called CSS.

Just curious,

Karl

We tracked down the guy who wrote the original VB application.
He is now a home improvement contractor. We paid big bucks for him to leave his regualr job and come help us out. The only response we got from Alvey, was "wow that's an old system, you can upgrade to the latest and greatest for the cost of repairing that old beast, we can have a new unit installed in less than 3 weeks." The down time was the killer. We have vowed to never do business with Alvey again, if at all possible.

A close one

I certainly understand your strong feelings about the reponse. The genteleman you refer to did the programming back when the Gantrys were made by a very small private company. Alvey purchased this group and then Alvey was purchased by FKI out of London. Soon after Alvey purchased them, they phased out your control system

I don't know how much longer is he planning on making these service calls. You were very lucky to get in contact with him.

I would work on your spares now as well. The gantry sales pretty much disapeared and Alvey got into the robot business and they have really struggled with this as well. This group dwindled down to three people at one time.

I can only imagine who you talked to about this problem and that is why they gave you that response.