Problem- TORQ-CUT 22 Problems

[tpmx57]

I have not used my Torq-cut 22 for about 3 months now and when I went to start it yesterday it gave me problems with the display not working.
The monitor came on but very dim.
After a little time it came on but the colors were way off.
It had alot more red than before but still usable,I thought it would come on right after it warmed up.
The machine started and ran fine for awhile.
I ran several parts and had no problems with tool changes or anything.
The machine was setting idle while I typed in another program and all at once it shut down and I could smell something hot,no smoke or smell of wiring just something hot.
I shut down the power and let it sit awhile to cool down while I looked for what had got hot.
I couldn,t find anything.
I attempted to restart the machine and it started giving me different errors each time I would try.
Anything from a keyboard error to a nonsystem disk to hard drive errors.
I cleaned a few connectors and finally got the machine to start.
It would home out ok and I could start the spindle and run a tool change with no problems.
I found I could not jog any axis with the + or - buttons but could move all axis with the handwheel.
Feed overide and spindle overide wouldn,t work plus the tool eject button and index button didn,t work.
I shut the machine down and did some more cleaning and now when I start the mill I get a keyboard error but can press F1 and machine will come up.
It has a message about the E-stop button is pressed but the button is pulled out with the message still there.
I have red the manual and it shows the jog handwheel is ran on 5volts but everything else that doesn,t work except the e-stop is on 12v.
The e-stop being 24v.
I have checked f19(12+) and f18(12-) and they are not blown.
There looks to be 2 circuit breakers in the 12v line but I cannot locate them.
Any ideas what to look for would be appreciated.
I need the machine to fill an order I have.
I am doing them now on my Series 2 cnc but it will be much slower without the tool changer.
this machine has been real dependable for me and was running fine when last used.
By the way the monitor colors are still not right.
Thanks in advance for any help!

[machintek]

take a close look at the mother board around where the keyboard plugs in. Typically there is a ni-cad battery there. I believe it may be leaking out its electrolyte. This will affect the operation of the keyboard and any switches running on 12 VDC. Also the CMOS may be failing you, thus affecting hard drive access.

George

[tpmx57]

Thanks George,
I will look at this tonight.
Would this also effect the e-stop circuit?

[tpmx57]

George,
I checked out the mill tonight.
I found the battery,its marked VARTA 3.6v 60mah Ni-Cad.
I don,t see any leakage but right behind the motherboard the cabinet has black smoke marks,this is right where the battery is located.
There is also a 2-wire plug there that is ran up to a TAIRAN 3.6v High Energy Lithium battery that is mounted to the cabinet right above the motherboard.
I can just imagine what the back side of the MB looks like in the area behind the ni-cad.
Right now the machine boots up with a KB error and I can press F1 and it will boot on up.
Then I get the e-stop pressed error that I can,t get around.
Is it possible to find replacement motherboards that will work with the machine?
I would like to replace the MB,video card and harddrive and put the originals away.
I have copied the harddive before just to be safe.
Thanks!

[machintek]

Many years ago, we took the easy way out when a CMOS battery went dead, we just installed a external lithium battery that was made for that purpose and moved the battery jumper from internal to external. We quickly learned that the old battery HAS to be removed or else it will leak and trash the mother board. Probably your situation.
There are many posts on this and they just need to be searched.
In a nutshell. Either find a old PC where the mother board has ISA slots ( but you still have a old PC) or purchase from EMI-inc.net a mother board kit.
E stop is a 24VDC device wired to the AUF board. But if the software does not load correctly due to CMOS issues, the BMDC may not communicate correctly with the rest of the control. The maintenance manual has wiring diagrams.

George

[tpmx57]

Can a Pentium 100 motherboard be used in place of the 486 dx2?
THANKS

[machintek]

Yes, as long as it has a ISA slot for the BMDC.

George

[tpmx57]

Thanks again George your a live saver.hopefully sometime i will be able to help someone else with these mills.
I have no problem searching threads for other info just keep in mind a couple questions to start off with can get a dummy like me pointed in the correct direction instead of getting into alot of other problems jumping in blind and looking for the wrong thing.
I was looking for blown fuses or broken wires and had no idea about the battery problem.
I bought 2 motherboards,both pentium 100,1 is a Intel DX4 Pentium 100 MHz(4 isa slots-3 pci slots)
other is a Intel Pentium 100 MHz CPU mainboard (3 isa slots)
Will look into a dom like you suggested before.

[tpmx57]

You hit the nail on the head again George.
I took the boards out today and on the backside of the motherboard just below the battery the board is burned up about the size of a quarter.
I have a 100mhz motherboard coming.
I will install it and see if the machine will boot back up ok.
Then I would like to get your guidance to make backups of everthing including the harddrive than I want to install a DOM in place of the drive.
I want to get it now and want to know what is the best size for the machine.
Thank You

[machintek]

Just worked on 2 DX32 controls that had 64MB DOM in them. That is enough for everything plus WIN 3.1. Or you can purchase one already loaded from EMI.
Check the root directory. I believe that there there is a MAKE DISK.bat that is supposed to make a back up for you. In addition, you will need a set of DOS 6.2 disks (EMI is using DOS 6.22). You can make a DOS boot disk from the hard drive and then transfer what you need such as FORMAT, SCANDISK, DEFRAG, etc.I put the files BMDCPRMS.sys and LEADCOMP.dat in a few places so I know that I will always have a backup of these machine specific files. LEADCOMP.dat was onl used in machines that Bridgeport thought needed it.

George

[tpmx57]

I found a motherboard on Ebay that fits perfect to replace my old one.
I installed it tonight and the machine will boot up but than I still have the EMERGENCY BUTTON PRESSED ERROR.
When I check the logfile it says "communication error from auf"
I am no electrician but studdied the wiring diagrams and believe my problem maybe FU12,it supplies 24v to the AUF card for the E-STOP circuit.
Problem is I can not find that fuse.
I have 2 small problems that aren,t a big concern as of right now but I want to iron them out,1 is a diskette drive error press F1 to continue on bootup and a problem with I believe is the video card,tonight when i started the mill after replacing the motherboard the screen just scrolled,I pulled the ideo board and cleaned it with an eraser and it still did the same some but finally stated on.
I want to find a new isa video card but am not sure about finding one and drivers for dos also.
My first problem is the E-STOP circuit problem,if anyone knows where that elusive fuse is located please let me know,I am going to look some more.
If you think maybe the problem is something elase just give me an idea what to look for.
THANKS to all!

[machintek]

Have you ever been in a old cessna plane? You would recognize the pop out circuit breakers. There are 2 of them, black in color. I have had a few machines where this developed a high resistance internally and thus the 24V was not what it was supposed to be. Or was it 12 volts?
However, some Tc22 had 2 pop out circuit reakers on the side of the raised box that the AUF sits on. White buttons. Check that.
Lastly, in the top left corner of the electrical cabinet are a couple of overloads. Make sure you try the resets on those as well.
If the AUF has 2 red LED lit (one lit, one blinking), it is getting 24VDC. Comes in on wires 40 and 39.
Make sure CMOS has floppy set as 1.44MB 3.5 inch.
The video problem sounds more like a CRT issue.

George