Rebuild Hurco Power Supply w/ PC Power Supply VMX30

[jex mfg]

I have read that it is possible to rebuild a Hurco Power Supply using a PC power supply and an additional 24v power supply. I am not having any luck finding any schematics or instructions.

Is this possible? We have a VMX30 purchased around 2006.

I am confident that I can perform this build with the correct schematic and information.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Once I get the information and perform the build I can post photos and procedures while I am working on the machine.

Thank you, in advance, for any help.

JD
Jex Manufacturing Inc Elite Go Kart Racing Parts

[fasto]

I don't think it's possible to "rebuild" the power supply. I think you could replace the power supply with a PC power supply and an additional 24V supply.

Find the color code of the wiring in the Hurco. I don't know if this changed from the old BMC's and KMB's that I know. The color codes for the older machines are Here.
Hook up the PC power supply to +12, +5, -12. You'll need to trick the PC power supply to turn on. There should be notes on the web to do this. The notes should also cover the color codes of ATX power supplies.
Get a 24V supply. Hook it up to +24 on the Hurco. Make sure it can handle the load. I'd get as big a 24V supply as I could find, at least 5 Amps, 10 is better.
Connect the 0V/DC return of the power supplies together, and to the Hurco's 0V.

Bear in mind that a PC power supply won't run with no load.

[jex mfg]

Thanks for the information. I suppose I meant replace and not rebuild. Just purchased a pc power supply from Best Buy and will get a 24v 10 amp power supply from Phoenix Contact. I will post my progress this weekend. Any other information is welcome.
Thanks again,

JD
Jex Manufacturing Inc Elite Go Kart Racing Parts

[john_100]

one of many links to use a atx psu as a bench power supply -

Convert an ATX PSU to a Bench Power Supply

for your use ,just link the green (power on) wire to one of the black (0v) wires to
switch the psu on (black wires = 0v ,red = +5v ,yellow = +12v )

you don't need to fit the 5 ohm 10w external power resistor to load the +5v output (across 0v and +5v ),
as the machine control circuits should be enough, unless you need to test the psu on its own

if you need to ensure the 24v supply can't be on without the 5v and 12v supplies
you could use the +12v from the atx psu to switch a relay (12v dc coil) to control the mains to your 24v power supply

alternatively use the power good signal (grey wire) via a 10k resistor to switch a transistor, to contol the +12v relay
John

[jex mfg]

@ john_100 This link and diagram are excellent. Thank you.
@ fasto Is there a way to confirm the 24v power requirements? I can get the power supply that I need, however, I want to make sure that I get one that is more than sufficiant without going overkill.

This has been very helpful. I will be tearing into this project tomorrow hoping to be up and running by Monday. I will post progress.

Thanks again,

JD
Jex Manufacturing Inc Elite Go Kart Racing Parts

[fasto]

JD the best way is to check the old power supply for a rating. If you can't find one you'd need to estimate the load by adding up all the 24V loads that could be on at the same time.
My machine is a 1989 BMC-20 so it's probably a lot different from yours. As a guess any & all air solenoid valves & relays are 24V. All the lit pushbutton lights are 24V. The machine light is 24V but has its own transformer on my machine, yours may be different.

You can estimate 0.1 amps for each relay, and 0.25 amps for each air solenoid valve. The lamps in the pushbuttons are probably 0.1 to 0.2 amps each. On my machine there's 17 relays and 6 air solenoids and 3 lamps in pushbuttons. That's around 5 amps or so. The microswitches & prox switches run on 24V and don't use much power. Some of the control might use 24V too. So I doubled my 5A to get 10A because I can't estimate any closer.

[jex mfg]

OK I now have 24v, 12v, 5v, and -12v.
After power up I receive the following error...
http://www.jexmfg.com/jeximages/winmax.shell.jpg

Would this have to do with the power supply or is this a totally unrelated issue?

There were 2 wires on the old power supply that are not hooked up...
PG and -5v

Does hurco use the signal from either of these? Would they be causing the error?

Any help is appreciated.

JD
Jex Manufacturing Inc Elite Go Kart Racing Parts

[john_100]

not sure what winmax.shell is, part of Hurco's software ?

but I guess the fact it boots up and displays the error message
it is almost working but has a damaged or missing file

normaly a pc motherboard will not boot until it has the +5v power good signal

in a pc the +5v is for the logic ic's , +12v motors in diskdrives and fans , and both +12v & -12v for the serial ports
not sure what requires the -5v ,some psu's don't have it
I assume it could be some types of memory and the -5v can also generated by one of the regulator circuits on the motherboard if required

do you have another hard drive and disks to do a complete install
with the 2nd hard drive you can allways get back to where you are

John

[jex mfg]

Made some progress today. Seems the machine has a 2 part problem. Only related to a power failure that happened last week. Killed the power supply and also corrupted WinMax (Hurco software).

I did get the power supply to work so far. I will be posting photos. I used a PC power supply from Best Buy. I also found out that our Hurco does not use the -5 vdc or the PG signal wire.

I also used a Phoenix Contact 5 amp 24vdc power supply(info here http://rd.phoenixcon.com/products/in...3127_00_en.pdf ). I had this one in house rather than ordering a 10 amp and having to wait. Hopefully, the 5 amp will be enough.

Now onto the software issue...

[fasto]

Yes you're making progress. I've never used a winmax system myself. There's a procedure that can be used to reload the software - if you have the disks.

About the PG and -5V: most industrial pc's don't use the PG ("Power Good") signal as they've usually got a VCC sensor on board tied into a watchdog timer. The -5V is leftover from the really old days, and isn't used by anything on moden computers except perhaps the sound. It's still required to be on the ISA bus so it's still provided out of the power supply. It was used as the die bias on the 8080 CPU's. (Man, the 8085 was a huge improvement: single voltage, single clock, not that ridiculous 4-phase clock input the 8080 needed!)

[jex mfg]

I think we are back up and running. I learned a lot and have some good information that I will be sharing as soon as I get organized. Thank you for all the responses and great information. I will be posting photos soon.

JD
Jex Manufacturing Inc Elite Go Kart Racing Parts

[jex mfg]

Hurco VMX Power Supply Retrofit - a set on Flickr
Here are some photos of the retrofit. I also added some captions explaining the process. I will add more information this week.