Field Replacement of the ACR8010

Owned by Jack Degrano
Last updated: Apr 26, 2024 by Corey Boyles
2 min read

The Acroloop ACR8010 Motion Controller uses Plug and Play technology to set up how host computer resources are used. One of the "features" of the Plug and Play subsystem is that it keeps an internal list of every PnP device it has seen and configured. Because of this, simply exchanging ACR8010 boards in a configured system will render the system inoperative, since the new board will be configured as a different device.

If an ACR8010 must be replaced in an existing machine, some preparatory steps must be taken to avoid configuration problems. The procedure for Windows NT 4.0 is as follows:

  • Shut down the host computer control application. Do not shut down the computer itself yet.

  • Open the Control Panel (Start | Settings | Control Panel).

  • Double-click the Devices applet.

  • Highlight the ACR8K driver and stop it.

  • Close the Devices applet.

  • Double-click the ACR8K Driver Setup applet

  • Highlight the device you are about to replace. (in single-board applications, this will be Device 0)

  • Click on the Delete button to remove the device.

  • When prompted, select Restart Now to reboot your computer. When the screen goes dark and the BIOS initialization appears, turn off the power.

  • Remove the ACR8010 board and install the replacement.

  • Restart the computer. Windows NT will inform you that it has found new hardware.

  • When prompted, supply the driver disk that shipped with your ACR8010 and install the driver.

  • The new ACR8010 will now be installed as the same device you had just deleted.

    Since this procedure does require having the device driver files available, OEMs may want to place a copy of the drivers on the hard drive of the machine when first setting it up. Simply copy the X:\WinNT folder from the Acroloop SDK CD (where X is the letter of your CD-ROM drive) to a convenient location on the machine's hard drive. Include a copy of this app note in the service record for the machine and note the location of the driver files, since it may be a very long time before the ACR8010 fails and needs replacement.