smoke coming from the controller box

[new to cnc]

I am not an electronics guy. I am pretty happy when the light comes out of the bulb when i flip the switch. So I need a bit of help with this one:

I tuned on my system and flipped the power on switch on the control box. I then hit the page up button which usually makes the spindle head move in an upward direction.

Well yes it did move up but also I got a smoke and burning electrical smell from the control box.

I dont know what brand of control box this is.

I also dont know why it started smoking. I didnt do anything that I hadnt done 50 times before.

In any event can someone identify this drive unit and is the board sold somewhere so I could unplug the smoked unit and replace with a new one?

here are a couple pics:
the burnt chip:
http://redhotgundeals.com/millpix/chip.JPG

the board:
http://redhotgundeals.com/millpix/board.JPG

the box:
http://redhotgundeals.com/millpix/box.JPG

also, is it normal for these to just up and burn out for what I can see is no reason at all? Age?

[Jeff-Birt]

Judging by the 'quality' of construction it could be one of units from a well known 'low buck' Taig system dealer (before they went with the G540 driver.) However everybody and his brother makes stepper drives these days with the same chipset as you have on your driver board (they are inexpensive). Many of these are not very well done (I have seen a few that were well designed.) Given a poorly designed board the stepper driver chips will fail on a regular basis.

You can also damage them quite easily by turning the stepper motors by hand, which lets the motor act like a generator sending power into the driver.

You can probably find a similar drive board to swap in or spend a bit more and get a higher quality unit that won't give you any more troubles.

[new to cnc]

Ok so its not all that uncommon for these boards to fry if they are a lower quality build.

I wouldn't have any idea what constitutes a quality replacement board. I would certainly not mind spending a bit more if it means less likelihood of this happening again.

Do you have any suggestions as to what board I might research and or look into getting to replace this blown board? You mention the g540. Would that be a good replacement?

any help appreciated

[new to cnc]

Keling has listed on ebay a g540 driver with KL-350-48 48V/12.5A, 110V/230V power supply for buy it now $309

I am running 3) kl23h276-30-8b motors on the mill.

does that setup sound about right?

[Jeff-Birt]

The G540 has an internal very fast blowing 7A fuse. It will never get even close to needing a 12A power supply....

[new to cnc]

thanks

[JohnLucas]

Good design to have a 12A supply with 7A fuse. Fuses are cheap!

[Jeff-Birt]

The G540 has an internal very fast blowing 7A fuse. It will never get even close to needing a 12A power supply....

What I was getting at is that the G540 does not need a 12A power supply. If you are sizing a linear unregulated supply it is common practice to 'over size' them about 30% to keep the output voltage at a reasonable level while under load so you would fit a larger supply. A good quality switch type supply will put out 100% of its rated load with almost no voltage drop at 100% duty cycle.

In testing with a G540 I found that even with four steppers under load the average current draw was only around 5A. Due to this actual real-world testing that I have done I have been using a good quality 320W (6.7A @ 48V) power supply in my G540 based controllers with great success. This size power supply puts out all the power a G540 can actually use.

[john_100]

at first I thought it was a copy of hobbycnc's 4 axis pro driver kit

but it isn't , the IC is not the same ( SLA7078MR in the hobby kit)

spare 21 pin SLA7062M IC's are sold for their other kits

Driver Board Kits | HobbyCNC

Spare Parts | HobbyCNC

John