[ginner]

Hey guys, I have a problem. When I power up my vmc, and then hit the green button, this happens:

1. I hear three "thumps" - same as the ones when I type cold start during normal start of the machine,

2. When I look at the screen, I se some messed up horizontal lines,

3. I get no spindle load LED's indication bar (not even one diode, although I' m pretty sure there was two diodes lit when the machine worked fine).

4. A guy who repairs machines found all voltages OK, only my 3.6V battery was dead.

Replaced the battery today, same thing happens. Read on some threads I should go to maintenance mode via jumper 2 after the battery chage but I dont know how... Here is a pic of my screen...

Any help, I am more than thankful..

[rodney247]

Is the card in slot #8 your 1030 card is the led Blinking. Your video monitor may be going bad trying turning your video switch on and off. on and off. Sometimes you can adjust your monitor there are knobs inside the pendant.

[ASIGuy]

Ginner. It sounds like you have a CPU board and/or software module bad. If you have checked your 5VDC supplied by the low voltage power supply on the top of your electronics cabinet and all is good there, then power down, remove all the boards, clean the gold tabs with an eraser or scotchbrite or something and make sure they are clean when you put them back in. Also, make sure your connectors are tight on the edge of the boards. Power up and see what you have. Look at your controller cards and see if the red LED's are lit and blinking. Pay particular attention to the light blinking on the card in slot #8. This is your communications card and can give you all kinds of trouble if it goes bad. If you want to try replacing those boards, provided that nothing else worked, we likely have them in stock and can get them out to you. We also offer a service where you can send in your card rack and we troubleshoot it here on our test machine. The cost is $450 but money well spent considering down time and shipping boards back and forth.

FadalCNC Tech Support

[ginner]

Ginner. It sounds like you have a CPU board and/or software module bad. If you have checked your 5VDC supplied by the low voltage power supply on the top of your electronics cabinet and all is good there, then power down, remove all the boards, clean the gold tabs with an eraser or scotchbrite or something and make sure they are clean when you put them back in. Also, make sure your connectors are tight on the edge of the boards. Power up and see what you have. Look at your controller cards and see if the red LED's are lit and blinking. Pay particular attention to the light blinking on the card in slot #8. This is your communications card and can give you all kinds of trouble if it goes bad. If you want to try replacing those boards, provided that nothing else worked, we likely have them in stock and can get them out to you. We also offer a service where you can send in your card rack and we troubleshoot it here on our test machine. The cost is $450 but money well spent considering down time and shipping boards back and forth.

FadalCNC Tech Support

Hey,

Tried all that - all the same. My guess - battery dead (found that so, replaced it), lost all parameters. For some reason my screen wont work because of that. If I go to maintanence mode and re enter parameters, it will all be ok. Found in manual that I can go to maint mode by connecting jumper j2. Is that the jumper on my cpu card? Found 2 pairs of wires - marked with j2 and j3, respectively. Do i need to solder manually two wires marked with j2 to go to maint mode? I foud it says to "do not forget to remove the shunt" before starting the machine after re entering the parameters. Is that what is thought?

Yeah, also my cpu card LED is not blinking...
Card in slot no 8 is blinking fine.

Thanks a lot for help.

[ginner]

Hey,

Tried all that - all the same. My guess - battery dead (found that so, replaced it), lost all parameters. For some reason my screen wont work because of that. If I go to maintanence mode and re enter parameters, it will all be ok. Found in manual that I can go to maint mode by connecting jumper j2. Is that the jumper on my cpu card? Found 2 pairs of wires - marked with j2 and j3, respectively. Do i need to solder manually two wires marked with j2 to go to maint mode? I foud it says to "do not forget to remove the shunt" before starting the machine after re entering the parameters. Is that what is thought?

Yeah, also my cpu card LED is not blinking...
Card in slot no 8 is blinking fine.

Thanks a lot for help.

Had jumper j2 on my 1400 board connected - I get no "thumps" on pressing the green button, nor axis amp LEDs are blinking.

However, my cpu board LED is also not blinking.
Screen is useless, but kinda different.

Seems like I'm onto something, but still not on my way to working machine.

Any ideas, guys?

Thanks in advance.

[rwskinner]

If you don't have any of the LED's on then installing jumpers and jacking around isn't going to help any. You need to check the low voltages from the power supply.
Measure the +5 volts, 12 volts, and -12 volts on the PC Power supply and let us know what you have.

Your CPU is not booting so the monitor won't work because there is no video signal.

[ginner]

If you don't have any of the LED's on then installing jumpers and jacking around isn't going to help any. You need to check the low voltages from the power supply.
Measure the +5 volts, 12 volts, and -12 volts on the PC Power supply and let us know what you have.

Your CPU is not booting so the monitor won't work because there is no video signal.

Just removed CPU card. Sending it to the repair guy, just in case it's somthing as stupid as bad capacitor... But small chances for that, I bet i'll need a new one...

Thanks, guys.

[ginner]

Hey guys. I found out a couple a weeks ago what was the problem in this case. I had one connector on the amp card that was not mounted properly. At the same time, my crt monitor was not working (coincidence or not, I dont know). Anyway, those two small things mislead me to think I have some bigger problem.

The machine worked ok until the connector had some contact, then, when it had no contact, at the same time my monitor malfunctioned. I tried various things and contacted many repair guys, who tried to repair my machine. Luckily, I discovered bad connector. Then I called some old tv repair guy, who fixed my crt, said it was easy to detect and repair that kin of defect.

And the chips are being made again????

P.S. Do not turn the pot (the green one, on the left side) in the pendant housing, that is voltage adjust pot. By turning it, I burned some chip on that monitor module. Iturned it because it says on the print "V adjust", which I meant means "vertical adjust". But no, it means "voltage adjustment". Should have turned "v hold" instead.

If someone has the same problem...