Ooookay, finally I am at my wits end...Alright, let me start off by saying that I am not a newbie with engraving, I have been running an IS 400 for seven years where I work, doing all sorts of work with it, 8 x 10 bronze plaques, photographs,etc, but that's what I am not here for, that machine is running fine.What I am here for is the machine that the IS 400 replaced, I was told where I work to 'get rid of it or take it home with you, just make it disappear' . So, here I sit with a NH Vanguard 3000, a cartridge controller and an EP module.Now, I am a relatively good troubleshooter so I am told(that's another of my titles where I work,test engineer) but for the life of me I am lost on this one..I think I may know now why they got rid of it, no one else could figure out what was going on with this thing, and so I am now one of those people too. So I ask humbly for help;I apologize first off for the length of this post,this has been a long,long troubleshooting scenario.With that said this is the sequence of events in chronological order: Inherited machine, cartridge controller,had to buy old small RCA monochrome,(they had an old word processor hooked up serially with this..dont ask me how it worked,have not a clue)set machine up, initially it worked, went thru it's boot sequence,downloaded ok, set up engraving plate, tried to adjust z axis, started smelling smoke(yes.oh no went thru my mind)shut machine down.Looked thru machine/controller, found one z axis driver was toast.Checked motor, winding resistance was off on one phase,motor smelled smoky so ordered new/old 2 phase motor,thinking that may be the issue. Put new motor in, put in new z axis driver chip, turned cartridge controller on,motor jogs back and forth. OK z axis sensor could be bad. Checked z axis sensor, checked out ok. Replaced z axis limit switch. Nope,still does it.Noticed new z axis chip getting hot also. Did it so much troubleshooting kfinally blew out chip. Around this time I found an EP controller online and purchased that, thinking that'll make my issue go away. It did not. Hooked it up ,blew out z axis driver. Installed new driver chip, no z axis LED no communication, all I get when the EP boots up is NH v3000 and the software revison # (2.07)(I get a 201 at 086:0393 error after some time and no operation. I am running GS5 with a dongle . I know that all works. Okay with all this said(and there's a lot more) does anyone have any clues as to whats going on with this machine or is it posessed? Shall I toss it all like I initially was told or is this saveable? I have checked wiring, went thru all the mollie plugs, checked out equipment ground, checked for shorts, nothing. Thought it might have been feedback, did the 0.47 mfd capacitor across limit switch, that seemed to help but did'nt solve the problem. Please please help..