Elumatec E555

Hello,
I'm hoping someone will see this! I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post.

I have an Elumatec E555 that I have been working on for the past week.

Initially, the OS (windows 2000) would not boot, claiming some system files were missing upon startup. I attempted a repair on the OS but it would fail.
This led me to believe the drive had failed, so I swapped out the compact flash card for a new one and successfully installed Windows 2000 on it, but it would fail to boot saying the OS was not found.

I installed the original drive, with a plan to try and reinstall windows on it. I went into the BIOS and reset them to default before trying this.

Right after I reset the bios to defaults, the machine refused to output anything to the display. The backlight would power on and show a little bit of the image that was burned in accompanied by some colorful artifacts, then click off and repeat that over and over.

I attempted to reset the CMOS, but the battery is soldered to the motherboard.

After a full day of troubleshooting, I was guessing that just by coincidence, the display had died right at that time.
I have since installed a new display but the same issue persists.

Elumatec is no help and they want $12000 for an E570.

Sorry for the long post, I’m just hoping to get some direction from people who have worked on these units before.

Thank you

I not familiar with that controller, but I can give you some general computer advice.

The symptoms you describe sounds like a power supply problem. I would first remove any accessory cards from the motherboard and see if it will at least power up. If not then replace the power supply. I'm assuming that it will run on a standard AT or ATX power supply

When you reset the BIOS that possibly changed the boot order, or would maybe require that you reenter the drive parameters, so it didn't know where to look for the boot drive. There should be a jumper near the CMOS battery that would allow a BIOS reset. I can't imagine a monitor not coming up do to a BIOS setting in any kind of a Windows based system.

Hi Jim, thank you for the reply.

I wish it was anything close to a standard PC style setup.
There is no power supply within the unit. all power comes the CNC machine side.

There is also no jumper to be found, I tried a few spots that might have been it, but this tech is entirely different to PC tech.

I'm really stumped with this one. If you'd like pictures of the internals, let me know and I'll send them over

Some pictures might be helpful.

I guess I would go through and check voltages. You should have 5V and 12V to the computer. I had a problem on one of my 5V supplies on a CNC computer, I just disconnected the 5V power from the onboard 5V supply and installed a ATX supply to supply the 5V for the system.

Here is a google photos link.
Please take a look and let me know if anything is familiar.

I'm a sysadmin, I've only used a volt meter a hand full of times, I wouldn't be sure how to test for that.

I posted and imgur and a google photos link, hopefully these work for you.

https://imgur.com/a/PD5AlNP

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vygpW1hUL9hCtwDd8

It looks like that board is powered up by the DC to DC converter, the CINCON device on the board. I'm going to guess it has a 24VDC input (the 18-36V side) and outputs 5VDC.

If you flip the board over, you should be able to measure the in and out voltage where the pins are soldered into the board. It that tests out OK, then I don't know where to go with this one.

If Elumatec is not willing to help out, then a retrofit with some custom software might be in order. The control system hardware is pretty simple as is the machine, so the question is: How are your programming skills? If you had to have someone write the software it would cost more than Elumatec wants for a new computer.

Thanks Jim,

I got my hands on a multimeter and there are 4 pins on the opposite side of the board, do I need to supply power to the board to properly test for power?

Unfortunately, I'm not a programmer. At least not on the scale to write software to run this rig.

Yes the board needs to be powered up to test.

Maybe you can find some local help on the electrical testing. Any CNC or electronics tech should be able to help you out, maybe a local industrial electrician.

Where are you located?

I'll power it up later today and give it a test, one of our employee's is an electrician and I'll have him help me out.
But I'm definitely in over my head when it comes to electrical testing. Learning, but not there yet.

I'm located in Sacramento CA.

At least you are surrounded by all kinds of high tech people in your area. You should be able to get some local help. I only know one service tech in your area, but he doesn't specialize in computer systems, more in general machine repairs.

It does sound like you have some good help in-house.

So the power supply tested fine. The shops and techs I called don't even know what unit I have let alone how to work on it.

I've also submitted requests to 4 authorized shops online that work with elumatec, and they all told me there was nothing they could do for me.

Looks like I don't have much choice besides spending the $12k. Thanks for the suggestions and the help Jim!

Well that just sucks. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Best of luck.

Hey. I guess I can help you. Look for the MSC ETe-P3T manual because it is this motherboard. There is a BIOS manual. And information what to do with bad graphics settings. Since you changed it, it means that you know the password.