Old controller threw a fit and took my whole shift down with it

Got a 2003 Mazak with the old T-Plus controller, and last Tuesday around 2pm it just locked up mid-cycle. Screen went black, no alarms, nothing. Had to call in the old-timer who used to work on these things, took him 2 hours to find a blown capacitor on the main board. We ended up swapping in a used board from a parted-out machine in the back lot. Cost me half a shift and like 3 jobs worth of parts, but at least it's running again. Anyone else still nursing these old controllers and keeping spare boards around?

3 comments

3 Comments

felix_williams7124d ago

Wait, was it a cap on the power supply board or the main logic board on yours? We had a T-Plus lock up mid-cycle a few years ago and it was a cap on the c-axis drive card that blew and took the whole servo loop with it. That old guy you called in sounds like a lifesaver, we had to get a retired Mazak tech to walk us through the diagnostics on the phone. He told us those old boards are actually pretty simple to fix if you know which caps are the common failure points, so I started ordering a few spare caps from Mouser whenever they go on sale. Now I keep a little bag of like 10 different sized capacitors taped to the inside of the electrical cabinet door, feels dumb but it has saved us twice already.

abbyg6023d ago

The cap was on the power supply board in ours, right near the big heat sink. I remember the retired tech told us that particular spot is almost always a 1000 microfarad 25 volt that goes bad from heat cycling. Taping a bag of spares inside the cabinet is a clever idea, I might have to steal that since we lost a whole weekend once just waiting on a single capacitor from DigiKey.

cameronn6224d ago

Man, I feel your pain on this one. We had the exact same thing happen with a 1998 Mazak about two years back, screen went dead right in the middle of a tight production run. Found out the hard way that those T-Plus boards are getting harder to find, so now I keep a spare motherboard and a spare power supply on the shelf at all times. Actually picked up a decent used board off eBay for like 300 bucks just to have as backup, feels ridiculous but it saves your bacon when you're down. Also learned to check those capacitors first thing when anything stupid happens, they're almost always the culprit on these old girls lol.