- Need Help!- Tri Power Frying motherboards
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Tri Power Frying motherboards
I have a Tri-Power Patriot. Ran fine for a year then motherboard fried over the summer. Switched out with a good computer and motherboard fried on startup. Tested voltages and thought I had a ground problem in outlet. Fixed that problem and installed 3rd tower. It ran fine for 3 months, but sure enough went to boot up today and motherboard fried. I feel like it has to do with the 25 pin cable. Unit was installed by Camtronics and not modified. My question is... The 25 pin connection on the machine side is just a circuit board that connects to the gecko drives, there is no circuitry on this board. So basically the Gecko drives are driven straight from the parallel port. Should there be a breakout board between the computer and the Gecko drives to isolate the signals? I feel replacing this "dummy" board with a breakout board, it would prevent unwanted signals getting to my PC. Has anyone had any similar problems or any suggestions? Sick of replacing PC's. Thank you.
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Re: Tri Power Frying motherboards
A break-out board is a very good idea. It isolates the PC from the equipment. Here is a good write-up:
https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnc-breakout-boards/
Cheers,
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Re: Tri Power Frying motherboards
Thank you for the replies. I am running Gecko G-201 Drives. The spindle is not a VFD its just a 120v electric motor that I control manually. The gecko drives get a common +5v from the computer via USB connection. There is definitely a voltage difference somewhere because when I run a probe from my machine to the physical ground, it will show a few volts. I feel like isolating the drives from the computer should fix this problem. I don't get why a breakout board was not used as some sort of protection. I decided to purchase a smooth stepper with breakout board and replace current setup with that. It's getting harder to find a 32 bit computer with parallel port. I'm going to run it with Ethernet and a laptop. This way the computer will be isolated. I can also take computer inside when I am done using it. Hoping this will fix my problem.
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Re: Tri Power Frying motherboards
Update: Converted everything to smooth stepper and run off ethernet. Machine runs much better with no problems. Also nice knowing the PC is totally isolated from machine. It was almost a blessing is disguise fying the motherboards.
- Need Help!- Tri Power Frying motherboards
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