[ibsmachine]

I have been having GPAUF-R card problems on and off for 3 years. I have replaced the card 4 times and again it is out. I have been buying reconditioned cards from EMI because I can not find new ones. Does any one know where I can find new parts and not refurbished. Also has any one done a retro fit on a EZ Path 3 SL ?

[NC Cams]

First some history:

The Romi Expath lathe was a joint effort 'tween Bridgeport and Romi - Romi did the iron and BPT did the machine control, namely the BNDC. The gpauf was a auxiliary board that Romi appears to have designed (the print format suggests this as it differs from the BPT format). The ONLY sources for BMDC parts was BPT and/or Romi.

The guys at EMI formerly worked at BPT and did the design and development work on the BMDC. After BPT went bust and Hardinge bought the BPT assets, there was a rights battle over the BMDC. EMI ended up acquiring the BMDC rights once all the smoke cleared.

Your only hope of finding/getting a GPAUF new today would be thru either ROMI or EMI. The chances of that are probably slim or none.

Personal opinion: although new boards probably could be made/done, they would have to be retooled as (according to EMI telcon some time ago), all the prints and/or source codes to make the boards got lost in the shuffle of time and the BPT bankruptcy/Hardinge takeover..

The FPAUF is a pretty simple board, electrically. HOWEVER, it was NOT exceptionally robust when it was designed - it violates some simple "noisey environment" design principles - that is, the design might be OK for an industrial circuit BUT it would never pass muster in an automotive environment

The "noise" from all the relays the thing is firing could easily take it out over rime. The auto industry learned this as it was converting to computers in the mid 90's - BPT went bust before they learned these same lessons. I don't see EMI "updating" the system any time soon for reasons already cited..

Basically, the noise (voltage spikes, fluctuations, etc) that a car would readily tolerate, could/would probably take out the IC's on a GPAUF. I"'d be a nivkle to a donut that this is your "real" problem.

IF the IC"s on the GPAUF are getting fried and they are in IC sockets, you can probably buy the support IC"s from Digikey or MOuster and take a shot at replacing (DIY refurbish) ttem yourself. ONce you find a/the common IC's that are getting fried, something probably could be done to arrest the problem - I wouldn't count on EMI doing that as they make their living off of "refurbishing" the GPAUF's as they exist.

Fried GPAUF"s are the SYMPTOM of your problem, NOT the root CAUSE.

If you are torching the micro controller on the BPAUF (MC68HC811E2 ic) you MIGHT be able to replace it as well, if it is socketed. HOWEVER if it has code/software burned into it, EMI will probably be your ONLY option for servicing it.

Reason: they probably have good IC"s and can "read" them and burn new chips. There MIGHT be a way to reverse engineer a "good" GPAUF to protect yourself in the future. But this is usually beyond the capability of the average DIY servicer of the machine.

If you have a spare board, we MIGHT be able to help... PM me for details

[NC Cams]

F/u.

I"ve come to conclude that there are 2 versions of the GPAUF.

There is a GPAUF and also a GPAUFR.

WHy? THere are 2 different romi numbers for the same "GPAUF" board.

I" have a drawing for a GPAUFR.

Depending on what youre having trouble with, there might be a permanent fix with a minor board redesign.

They are feeding signals into the uP on the GPAUF R. these come from outside the card from what is a "Noisey" electrical environment. THe input to the GPAUFR is protected with zener diodes. But these can only absorb so many transients before they blow open or short closed.

I haven't worked on a GPAUFR but this would be the first place I'd look for troubles.

There are other places including the primitive IC's used to generate 5vdc plus some other issues that the automotvie guys learned not to do with uP circuits like those used on this card.

It is one thing to "refurbish" a dated PCB with new parts of the same dated design. It is another to revise/update the board to eliminate the problems which probably date back to the days when BPT and ROmi came up with the design back in the early 90s.

WHen you make your living refurbishing GPAUFR's and can put yourself out of business by "fixing" once and for all what may actually be a substandard design, which would you do????

[NC Cams]

IBS

Do you have any of the fried GPAUFR boards or did they all have to be turned in to EMI as cores? I"m intersted in the issues you're having as it might be cheaply fixable. Ditto that for "making noew ones" albeit better ones without the problem you're having.

PM me ASAP