I'm actually quite surprised that it has lasted as long that it has but the bad thing is we've been talking about backing it up and creating an image of it but very little down time and also didn't want me to mess with it, old school thought is if it's up and running let it be.... yeah well now it's came back to bite us in the rear. I have been in contact with the company who makes the control software and they do have their own web forum but sometimes moves fairly slow and takes a few days before anyone responds. I do have good news, he said they can create a disk for me ready to put in the machine once I get it up and working again they can just send it, we haven't talked about money yet but when you call them on the phone you have to give them your card information before they will even speak with you.
Basically we have 2 options, I can replace the drive with a ide to cf card reader which is what they used in later years, now they actually make ide ssd drives but are a bit costly. The 2nd option is to upgrade the PC with a newer unit that can run their newer software and runs off Linux, I like this one the best as we have newer machines and the compatibility is only one way meaning I can take from the old and copy them into the newer machines but I cannot go backwards, every new release they tweak and make updates that the older one simply gets confused and won't run, I haven't tried just programs with line moves but if it's using cutter comp that's what really gets it., basically all cutter comp is if you're standing behind the cutter which side of the part is the tool on, it's either offset to the left or to the right so it knows to move 1/2 the cutter over.
Awhile back I posted and had an issue with one of the other machines and I ended up replacing the PSU and the motherboard. The ones they used were not very good, I know that we've sent the unit back for repair once and I've at least replaced it twice since, the last two times I remember it being due to failed capacitors so I am refusing to keep using those boards but have found a solution, a newer AM2 K8M800 board, I can't speak for the longevity of this one but it's a huge upgrade and a lot newer, went from socket 754 all the way up to this, our other machine I believe is 939 but luckily I haven't had to work on that one near as much. I thought I could get another AM2 board but the controller card is 16 bit isa as it's a 486 computer, I asked them if replacing the controller card with a newer pci version would work with the rest of the machine but he didn't answer that question and came back and recommended another board that actually had a 16 bit slot and can run their newer software so I'm guessing the newer card will not work with the control, servo motors, etc of this machine.... I'm sure that other boards will work but they are only recommending the ones they have experience with.
I've been having trouble locating it over here but did find a Soyo board with the same chipset and searching around I found a website of a company that provides repair work on these machines and actually had descriptions and pictures of boards that were used in them, they showed both the MSI and Soyo boards, evidently they started using the Soyo's at the end when the MSI reached end of production. I found another page on Centroid's website that lists known problems, basically TSB's, the Soyo needs an adapter that will allow it to power on when the machine receives power, the bios option to restore power with AC is restored basically does not work or either sometimes does. I do know of a workaround for that, one of the machines they spliced the two wires together on the PSU so it stays powered on all the time, you cannot rely on the bios all the time especially when the battery fails you have to replace it and then go back into the bios and reconfigure it again, by default they lock them down with a password but is easily reset, and you have to keep fiddling around just to get it to boot which is trial and error figuring out what they had done.
I ended up ordering the MSI board from overseas... there is nothing over here except that one Soyo board, evidently in their time they actually made decent boards but are now defunct which is why I went with the MSI, I found Biostar had an option but there again no luck and didn't want to go down that rabbit hole again, I've already wasted enough time on this as it is. I'm hoping they will ship it soon, it might've been a canned response but they wanted me to show pictures of the board so I sent the one from that website.
I don't know if the board comes with a cpu or not, they showed pictures with and without it, even if it does they don't say what it is so I found another website with a PIII 1.4ghz socket 370 that should work and was 1/2 the cost of others on eBay. I don't know what's happened, pre- you could find this stuff about everywhere but I don't know where the supply has gone and prices are now through the roof, the memory was easy enough to find, I ordered 2x Crucial 512mb pc133 168 pin sticks, unbuffered, non-ecc and everything I found shows this type of memory and supports 1gb ram. The host operating system is Cnclinux and the specs show 1.2ghz cpu but you may be able to get by with less but the machine may have trouble keeping up with the motors, I guess being able to process the data accordingly keeping up with it.
Basically we have 2 options, I can replace the drive with a ide to cf card reader which is what they used in later years, now they actually make ide ssd drives but are a bit costly. The 2nd option is to upgrade the PC with a newer unit that can run their newer software and runs off Linux, I like this one the best as we have newer machines and the compatibility is only one way meaning I can take from the old and copy them into the newer machines but I cannot go backwards, every new release they tweak and make updates that the older one simply gets confused and won't run, I haven't tried just programs with line moves but if it's using cutter comp that's what really gets it., basically all cutter comp is if you're standing behind the cutter which side of the part is the tool on, it's either offset to the left or to the right so it knows to move 1/2 the cutter over.
Awhile back I posted and had an issue with one of the other machines and I ended up replacing the PSU and the motherboard. The ones they used were not very good, I know that we've sent the unit back for repair once and I've at least replaced it twice since, the last two times I remember it being due to failed capacitors so I am refusing to keep using those boards but have found a solution, a newer AM2 K8M800 board, I can't speak for the longevity of this one but it's a huge upgrade and a lot newer, went from socket 754 all the way up to this, our other machine I believe is 939 but luckily I haven't had to work on that one near as much. I thought I could get another AM2 board but the controller card is 16 bit isa as it's a 486 computer, I asked them if replacing the controller card with a newer pci version would work with the rest of the machine but he didn't answer that question and came back and recommended another board that actually had a 16 bit slot and can run their newer software so I'm guessing the newer card will not work with the control, servo motors, etc of this machine.... I'm sure that other boards will work but they are only recommending the ones they have experience with.
I've been having trouble locating it over here but did find a Soyo board with the same chipset and searching around I found a website of a company that provides repair work on these machines and actually had descriptions and pictures of boards that were used in them, they showed both the MSI and Soyo boards, evidently they started using the Soyo's at the end when the MSI reached end of production. I found another page on Centroid's website that lists known problems, basically TSB's, the Soyo needs an adapter that will allow it to power on when the machine receives power, the bios option to restore power with AC is restored basically does not work or either sometimes does. I do know of a workaround for that, one of the machines they spliced the two wires together on the PSU so it stays powered on all the time, you cannot rely on the bios all the time especially when the battery fails you have to replace it and then go back into the bios and reconfigure it again, by default they lock them down with a password but is easily reset, and you have to keep fiddling around just to get it to boot which is trial and error figuring out what they had done.
I ended up ordering the MSI board from overseas... there is nothing over here except that one Soyo board, evidently in their time they actually made decent boards but are now defunct which is why I went with the MSI, I found Biostar had an option but there again no luck and didn't want to go down that rabbit hole again, I've already wasted enough time on this as it is. I'm hoping they will ship it soon, it might've been a canned response but they wanted me to show pictures of the board so I sent the one from that website.
I don't know if the board comes with a cpu or not, they showed pictures with and without it, even if it does they don't say what it is so I found another website with a PIII 1.4ghz socket 370 that should work and was 1/2 the cost of others on eBay. I don't know what's happened, pre- you could find this stuff about everywhere but I don't know where the supply has gone and prices are now through the roof, the memory was easy enough to find, I ordered 2x Crucial 512mb pc133 168 pin sticks, unbuffered, non-ecc and everything I found shows this type of memory and supports 1gb ram. The host operating system is Cnclinux and the specs show 1.2ghz cpu but you may be able to get by with less but the machine may have trouble keeping up with the motors, I guess being able to process the data accordingly keeping up with it.