There is a rumor that after the motor controller computer reaches so many rides it ends up causing issues and killing the computer. Is this true? Maybe no one seems to know for sure, as the rumor started a bit after the company went out of business. Even though it may not be true, it is probably worth resetting your computer if it’s never been done before. If it has, it probably won’t need to be done again. My highest ridden coaster was at 24,000 rides and should be able to go much higher without issues.
First, you will need a computer with an RS232 port, a serial cable, and a terminal software like HyperTerminal or PuTTY.
First, fully disconnect power from the motor controller computer (the switch on the motor controller box only turns off the motor drivers, not the controller).
Connect your serial cable to the RS232 port on the motor controller and your computer. Next, simply open your terminal software, select whichever port your serial cable is connected to and uses the speed of 19200, open the terminal, and you should be connected. To verify this, apply power to the motor controller’s computer (keep the motor driver power switch off) and you should see:
If you don’t see this, verify all the connections and ensure that you selected the correct port and speed. If you intermittently get the connection you might have a bad 10uF filter cap on the computer board like I did.
Once you get connected, you MUST have caps locked on to interact with it (at least in PuTTY). Pressing “J” will print a readout of how many rides your coaster has ridden. If you now press “ESC”, it should clear the counts. Pressing “J” again should now print all the rides again but with ‘00000’ as the ride count.
If it reads all 0’s before clearing the rides, the battery on the computer has most likely failed and should be replaced.