Once you’re like [Wes] from Watch Wes Work fame, you don’t have a CNC machine hoarding situation, you simply have a wholesome curiosity in happening CNC machine restore rabbit holes. Such too was the case with a not too long ago acquired 2001 Milltronics ML15 lathe, that initially look seemed to be in pristine situation. But regardless of – or due to – dwelling a comfortable life at a university’s workshop, it had plenty of severe points, with a busted Z-axis drive board being the primary to be tackled.
The equivalent servo management board subsequent to it labored nice, so it needed to be a difficulty on the board itself. A fast take a look at confirmed that the H-bridge IGBTs had suffered the everyday destiny that IGBTs undergo, violently taking out one other IC together with them. Enjoyably, this board by one Glentek Inc. did the rebranding factor of elements like stated IGBTs, which made monitoring down appropriate replacements an utter ache that was eased solely by the determined communications on boards which offered some clues. After all, desoldering and testing one of many good IGBTs on the second board confirmed the precise kind of IGBT to get.
After changing stated IGBTs, in addition to an optocoupler and different bits and items, the servo board was good as new. Subsequent, the CNC lathe additionally had a busted optical encoder, an unusable device submit and plenty of different smaller and bigger points that required addressing. Alongside the best way the time period ‘pin-to-pin appropriate’ for a substitute driver IC was additionally discovered to imply that you simply nonetheless should learn the total datasheet.
Of the entire ordeal, the Glentek servo board positively induced probably the most bother, with the producer offering incomplete schematics, rebranding elements to make generic replacements very laborious to search out and general simply going for a design that’s fascinating however laborious to diagnose and repair. To assist out anybody else who obtained cursed with a Glentek servo board like this, [Wes] has made the board recordsdata and associated information out there in a GitHub repository.
