[v488]

I bought a V2XT at a auction and now i'm trying to get it up and running. I am being told to " Run BOOT Disk " in A Drive. I don't have this disk to run. I'm shure i'll need to give more info. on what i have so if someone can help, let me know what info. you need and where I can locate it. Thank You! Mike

[Jaguar]

Make sure it has a hard drive. If not it is trying to boot from a floppy. It may be an old V2 with the FMDC board. George on the Board here will know.

TM

[v488]

It looks to me that there is a hard drive mounted in the bottom left corner of the cabinet. I need to know what " board " and where to look on it to see if it is the FMDC or BMDC.
Thanks Mike

[machintek]

The fastest way for me to help you is to have the machine serial number. That will give me a clue as to what is inside your machine.
In the electrical cabinet, toward the top, do you have a small board with 4 AA batteries? If yes, you have a machine with a FMDC board and as a general rule, you will need a boot floppy.
If you do not, I would reboot the machine, press the delete key to access CMOS and make sure they are correct, time, date, and especially the settings for the floppy and hard drive. You may have a dead CMOS battery. It may be a lithium battery about the size of a quater, or a nickel cadmium battery soldered to the mother board. If it is a Ni-Cad, it may be bad (look for white or blue fuzzy on it) and will need to be replaced before the guts of it leak out and destroy the mother board. Give us an update. With the correct CMOS settings, your machine may boot, if it is the DX (BMDC) type.

George

[v488]

George, Does XT-822 mean anything? It don't seem like a S/N but thats what it says. I did NOT see the 4 AA batteries in any area. But, i don't see a small battery eather. I'm not shure what board is the mother board. It could be in front of me and i don't see it!
When i first started the mill the CMOS came up and NOTHING is set. I did set the time/day/date. I have not restarted it to see if it has saved it.
None of the drives are set up. I'm not 100% sure what to enter in for them becaulse there are choices. Thanks Mike

[machintek]

You have a newer V2XT.About a 1995 or 6 vintage. It has the BMDC board. It did come with a hard drive. You have to get back into CMOS and again check time and date. This will tell you if the battery is good. If the machine has been off for a while, it may need to be charged. It is usually 3 Ni-Cad button cells ina heat shrink tube (brown, blue, or green) about 1/2 inch in diameter and about 5/8 inch long near the keyboard plug. Note that someone may have changed out the mother board already. On the left side of the cabinet there is a board with other boards plugged in by their edge. Thius is the mother board. Your Maintenance manual or parts manual will show all of this. Typically you have a video board, I/O board with ribbon cables going to the floppy and to the hard drive, and there is a very long board plugged in called the BMDC.
In CMOS, the floppy should be set to a 1.44 Meg, 3 and 1/2 inch and if you have a full size hard drive for that vintage CMOS, it should be set to user type 47, 16 heads, 63 sectors, and 1024 cylinders. No hard drive sold by Bridgeport ever exceeded this so it was backward compatable. Your hard drive may be smaller, then from CMOS you could do a Hard Drive seek. If it is larger, I hope it has been FDISKed at the setting mentioned. From where I sit I cannot tell what you have.
Try that and get back to us.

George

[v488]

I just turned it back on and it said A+B Drive Failed. CMOS used to come up automaticly, now it don't. How can i get into CMOS again to reset it up ?
thanks mike

[NEATman]

v488-
Just so you know, there is a group on Yahoo for us V2XT owners.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/v2xt

Once you have the boot disk for your machine, please share it with this group, or the one on Yahoo.

Regards,
Keith

[v488]

Keith, i just joined the group, thanks Mike

[machintek]

There is no "boot" disk per se for this machine. You would need a DOS boot disk (preferably 6.20) and the three DOS disks and the software backup disk. This to do a restroration of the hard drive.
As the mother board boots, it should tell you to either press delete to get to the set up screen or a F key. Watch it carefully.
If the CMOS are set up correctly, you may still get a failure. You may need a I/O board. I usually pull this board and clean the edge connector with a soft eraser and plug it back in. I would also check the ribbon connectors to make sure the red stripe was to pin one on both sides, and that the power connector was attached to both devices as well. Someone may have messed with the machine.

George

[v488]

Here is as far as i can get, when the screen comes up it says C + D Drives Failed. Than it says " Run Setup Utility " , " Press < F1 > to Resume.
When i press F1 it changes to the next screen and say " Run Boot Disk in A Drive ".
This is as far as i can get. I don't have any of the Disks.
I was playing around with the set up in CMOS when it came up yesterday. It came up automaticly. I need to know how to get it back up again. Maybe i can set it correct if i try it again.
I will try to clean the I/O Board like you say.
Now i guess i need to get the Hard Drive Restore Disks in hand. I have NONE of this or manuals.
I greatly appreciate yours and everybodys help. thanks mike

[machintek]

Mike,
Get DOS 6.20 disks on EBAY with the license. Thats how I got mine. Machine manuals from machinemanuals.net which come on CDROM. There is no machine boot disk. I carry a DOS boot disk that allows me to at least get to DOS and see what is going on. I suggest my old bible, DOS for DUMMIES as another very worthwhile manual. I will see what is on file at the Yahoo V2XT group. Your machine may still work if you can set CMOS. Hold down CONTROL, ALT, and DELETE and your motherboard should reboot. Then at the appropriate time press the delete key. This should get you to the CMOS. This works with 90% of the PCs out there. You may have something different.

George

[v488]

George, i got back to CMOS. I put all the settings to thair defolt. I did the search for the hard drive , this found the C Drive. I than did the " Reconfigure the hard drive". I did hear the hard drive running. Than i saved everything i did and tried to run it but got a same " reboot A Drive " message. I think i did hear the hard drive run when the screen said to " WAIT....." I'll get that DOS for Dummies today and try to get the 6.20 disk. Have a great day . mike

[machintek]

You may still have a corrupted hard drive or it may have a boot virus. DOS 6.20 is actually a set of three disks. I did upload a machine software disk to the V2Xt users group on Yahoo. Now they have both the FMDC and the BMDC versions.

George

[v488]

My V2XT controller is now up . Now the next issue is getting the drive motors to come on. When the screen comes up it says Drives off. It looks to say, hit #7 the enable Drives. When i hit #7 i hear and see the cellanoid jump but it will not stay on. It jumps over than back. If it means anything the 3 boards ( i'm not sure if there the drive boards but there is 3 that are the same ) have the red and green lites on . Thanks Mike

[machintek]

Two possibilities.
First, there is a function key on the right side of the main screen that allows you to set the rapid rate, backlash and type of drives. This may be limited to the SX software but look anyway. There were two types of drives used on this machine, Bridgeport and MSI. with a 99% probability, you have MSI drives. This not set correctly would make the drives drop out.

Next when the drives enable, for that .5 second before the control reacts, watch the red LEDs. Do 2 go out and one stay on? The one that stays on has a fault. It may be the drive, a cable or a motor. Swap that board with another. If the led staying on follows the board, then you have a bad board. If it stays with the same board slot, it may be a motor or cable. I would then pull out a motor brush from the bad motor(maybe) and give it a sniff test. If it smells burnt, it usually is. Keep us posted.

George

[v488]

I switched the boards and the RED LED stayed with the SLOT. It is the middle board SLOT. What drive motor axis ( X Y Z ) does the middle board controll? I pulled the brushes out of the X and Y motors , thay look great. I will say that the Y axis cable connector with the 5 pins had BAD corosion in it. This was from having coolent water finding its way into it i would say. It did have a burnt smell to it after i hit the #7 ( enable axis button ) about 10 times. I cleaned the connector good ,tried to enable axis again but had NO luck. Might this have shorted out something before i got the mill and hurt the motor?
I had NO parameters disk so when i redid the hard drive thay all went to 0? I know the backlash & count say 0 when i look then up. I'll go and check what it says about the drive type.
I've been learning alot here. Many thanks. mike

[machintek]

The middle slot is the Y axis. You may have to ohm out the cable but remember it goes through a contactor that connects the drive to the card. Take the cable end of the connector apart. I have had to solder a wire back on to a pin many times.

There is no "parameter" disk for these machines. The parameters are generic and are loaded up with the software. At that point, you figure out what backlash values you need, etc. The generic parameters are loaded up to the BMDC board. The file is called BMDCPRMS.SYS. If you get to DOS, try typing in "pfm.exe". arrow down to edit parameters and press enter, arrow down to edit machine parameters and press enter. Cursor up or down to see them all.

George

[v488]

I checked the pins and thay are all soldered. I did a continuity test on the cable with the 5 wires and thay all came out ok. I'm not sure if i got a good reading becaulse of the drive contactor. Just for kicks i unhooked ALL cables to the drive motors to see is the RED LED would stay on all 3 boards but it only stayed on in the center. Not sure where to go from here. Thanks Mike

[v488]

YES!! The V2XT is running and all X Y Z axis are moving. The problem was a DEAD Short in the 5 pin cable for Y axis. Actually in the connector that plugs into the drive motor it self. It looks to have had fluid in it and was BURNED up bad. I think it had been on fire before. It was only after i had the plug totally apart that i could see this problem.
The next deal is the X DRIVE runs VERY rough. It bucks & jurks the hole mill. It was comming up as a runaway axis Alarm a few times. When i first enable the drives the X drive motor is calm than i home it and after that first move it runs rough. When i stop feeding the X it will not stop and sit still. It wants to shake than i need to hit the E-Stop to stop it from shaking.
George you have been a GREAT help. many thanks Mike