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Acu Rite 200M sat for years. Now no go !!!

Dan Miller

Aluminum
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Location
Ontario Canada
SUCCESS .................... The keypad ribbon cable was the problem. Now up and running.

...........................

Brought home a Bridgeport mill with an Acu Rite 200M DRO mounted on it. Machine sat idle for 10 years with no power.

Plugged in the 200M and the screen reads ........

Power was off ...... press clear ......

I did and nothing happens.

Is there an internal battery, mounted on a main board, much like a computer motherboard, sitting inside the Acu Rite? If so, it may be dead and causing the problem of not being able to see anything else, on the display, other than the Power was off ... Press clear instruction, which does nothing.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Dan Miller

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To get the Acu Rite working again was easy. Finding out how to was me stumbling across some obscure internet notation of the repair. That only took me three hours and a few cups of coffee to find.

The repair took 10 minutes of my time and the result was the Acu Rite screaming back into action.

Now I must post a question about my Align table feed.

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Had the same problem.......pull the readout apart and take the ribbon cable off and take an eraser and clean the contacts. I think when I searched I found it is corrosion between the cable and the connection.

Kevin
 
Chalk up one more ACU-RITE DRO fixed with advice from here.

Display came up with Power was off .... press clear message. Pressing clear did nothing.

Took it apart, really easy, pulled the ribbon cable, man that thing is delicate and seems to only make contact on one side, rubbed it gently with an eraser and re-inserted it and viola, she is working.

The ribbon cable is very thin plastic so better to "not" use any cleaner or solvent as if you use the wrong kind and it eats the plastic of the ribbon cable, your toast. So don't worry about using cleaner, get a good pencil with a good eraser, support the ribbon cable from the back and gently rub/clean it, then re-insert.

Due to how this is made that is about all you can do. There is also a computer hard drive style connector you will need to gently pull lose in order to then be able to do the ribbon cable.

I unscrewed the front cover, turned the unit upside down with the front cover facing me. I separated the front cover until I could see the hard drive style connector and used a scribe, the type with a bent tip on one end and gently worked on this hard drive style cable until I got it loose and was able to pull it free. Do not pull on the hard drive ribbon cable, only pull on the plastic end, this is kinda hard to "only" pull on that plastic end so work slowly.

I warn about no pulling on the actual ribbon part of the hard drive style cable because I have had these "hard drive" style ribbon cables separate from the plastic cable end because I pulled on the ribbon cable and not the plastic end to get it off while working on computers. If that plastic end comes apart you are screwed so pulling only on the plastic end keeps that from happening, this is where the 90 degree scribe is really helpful.

Next comes the small delicate ribbon cable that needs cleaning and re-insertion. There is a plastic fitting on the circuit board and the cable is inserted into it. Pull it straight out rocking it gently from side to side. It will slide out and come free.

Clean it "gently" with the pencil eraser then carefully re-insert it, re-insert the other hard drive style connector and be careful it is seated well, put in the screws and power it up for a test.

My DRO worked after the ribbon cable cleaning right off the bat.

This sounds harder then it is. if you are the "all thumbs" type of guy, find some one, maybe a young person who takes computers apart and knows how to work with that type of thing including how to pull the hard drive style connectors. I had experience with these and work on computers so it was easy for me.

Thanks to people who posted here for posting your problem and the fix.

This was an ebay purchase where I decided to "take the risk" as the price was good at 2 bills.

ACU-RITE 2X MILL D200 DOM

ACU-RITE Scale PN 3852522218 - 2µm

ACU-RITE Scale PN 3852522214 - 2µm

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Ribbon Example.jpg
This thread just helped me with my Accurite DRO. I would like to mention one thing though. There are two ribbon cables to deal with on mine. Like the posters above say one is an old school "PC hard drive" type connector. The second and the one that is a problem is a true ribbon cable. The ribbon is inserted in a connector on the circuit board. This type of connector looks like it is removed from the board. That is not the case. If you have not seen these before it is really like a ribbon. The end is inserted into the Female connecter on the board. I wish I would have taken a photo. A picture makes it very clear. Do not try to pull the female end off the board.
My unit is closed up but here is a generic example of what it looks like.
 
Had the same problem.......pull the readout apart and take the ribbon cable off and take an eraser and clean the contacts. I think when I searched I found it is corrosion between the cable and the connection.

Kevin


The thread that keeps on giving.

Had an issue with my Acurite D200 in that it worked fine then all of a sudden would not reset zero on the Y and Z axis. Removed the unit from the Bridgeport, removed face (4 screws), found the foil ribbon cable. Gently pulled it out of the connector on the board, cleaned both, pushed back in, panel back on and refitted it to the mill. Worked again first time.

Thanks for the information, saved me a bunch of heartache and $.
 








 
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