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Need help/advice for CRT replacement on Milltronics YMC

smalltime

Banned
Joined
Jan 10, 2010
Location
Kansas City
We need to replace the CRT screen on this thing:
08_09_13_MILLTRONICS_PARTNER_MB20_VERTICAL_CNC_MILL_2.jpg

It's a Milltronics Partner VMC. The thing is still tight, and has had an easy life. We got it from an acquired company about eight years ago, before my time with the company.

#1 Do we need to use the milltronics part? I.E. can we find a replacement on our own and graft it in?
#2 Have any of you ever done a "self upgrade" like this before?
#3 Can a couple of guys pretty good with electrical/mechanical stuff get this done?

Just trying to avoid a $5,000.00 repair bill, that's all.

What say you?
 
Is it a CRT or a LCD? If it is a LCD:

Remove the box off the arm and open up the case.
The LCD will have a part number on it.
Do a search, there are tons of LCDs on the market, including old new stock, surplus. And they do not cost much.
A LCD will have a ribbon cable connector for data/control/power and one or two connectors for the backlight.
Easier to connect up than replacing a spare tire.

Post the part number and the screen dimension and I will look into it.
 
Cent V control?

Dead Frikken Easy!

I installed a 17 inch LCD flat screen on ours at work. It added the benefit of getting everything in colors, too.

Open up the box with the monitor and keyboard and follow the cable back from the monitor. You should find the end of the extension from the control box in the base of the machine, up there, and you should be able to recognize it as the same as has been used on computer monitors for a very long time.

I took the front bezel off our machine and left the original monitor in place. The larger monitor, gave better visibility, but caused the button boxes to no longer line up with the row of buttons. It was a pretty easy adaptation for us using it. Initially, we ran it with the monitor sitting on top of the pendant.

Ours came about when the monitor started getting flaky. Some preliminary poking around found the connector, and we stole a monitor off the desk computer too try. when it worked, we scrounged up a replacement monitor.

Another useful addition was a regular keyboard. There is a socket inside the pendant box that will take an old, large style keyboard plug. either keep and eye out for an old IBM keyboard or use an adapter plug.

Cheers
Trev
 
Is it a CRT or a LCD? If it is a LCD:

Remove the box off the arm and open up the case.
The LCD will have a part number on it.
Do a search, there are tons of LCDs on the market, including old new stock, surplus. And they do not cost much.
A LCD will have a ribbon cable connector for data/control/power and one or two connectors for the backlight.
Easier to connect up than replacing a spare tire.

Post the part number and the screen dimension and I will look into it.

Thanks Rons,
It's CRT, not an LCD. This thing is pretty old.

I'll try to get the part # Monday morning and post it.

Thanks for the effort.
 
Cent V control?

Dead Frikken Easy!

I installed a 17 inch LCD flat screen on ours at work. It added the benefit of getting everything in colors, too.

Open up the box with the monitor and keyboard and follow the cable back from the monitor. You should find the end of the extension from the control box in the base of the machine, up there, and you should be able to recognize it as the same as has been used on computer monitors for a very long time.

I took the front bezel off our machine and left the original monitor in place. The larger monitor, gave better visibility, but caused the button boxes to no longer line up with the row of buttons. It was a pretty easy adaptation for us using it. Initially, we ran it with the monitor sitting on top of the pendant.

Ours came about when the monitor started getting flaky. Some preliminary poking around found the connector, and we stole a monitor off the desk computer too try. when it worked, we scrounged up a replacement monitor.

Another useful addition was a regular keyboard. There is a socket inside the pendant box that will take an old, large style keyboard plug. either keep and eye out for an old IBM keyboard or use an adapter plug.

Cheers
Trev

Awesome!

This is EXACTLY what I wanted to read.

I will show this to the boss on Monday, and get at it.

Great news, thanks.
 
Awesome!

This is EXACTLY what I wanted to read.

I will show this to the boss on Monday, and get at it.

Great news, thanks.

Yeah, the Cent V control is based on, IIRC, a industrial 386 PC, with a drive on a board that takes the place of a hard drive. Pretty sure the Cent 6 is same on a slightly faster computer.

It has color VGA or SVGA output (sorry, used to know, cannot recall any longer) with an extension from the video output up to the box containing the monitor and the keys.

You should be able to fit almost any 14 or so inch monitor onto it. We grabbed a couple 17 inch Phillips units from our IT folks cupboard of 'maybe useful things', as they had a rep for auto-setting to odd resolutions very well, according to one of the guys in the shop that paid attention to such things at the time.

I bent up a frame for it out of Aluminum and mounted it on the screws that had held the original bezel in place.

Like I said, dead easy to test all the parts without making any permanent changes to the machine, as well as getting the upgrade from monochrome to color.

I know that a couple guys that post on the 'zone' forum, name not to be printed here, that have better DOS skills than I, that did a brain transplant using a single board computer on a backplane that was compatible with the drive cards, and they copied the operating system over to a hard drive.

Worth a dig around that Milltronics Forum.

Cheers
Trev
 
On our Centurion 6, I replaced the CRT with a 12.1" bare LCD panel that I bought on Ebay. (shipped directly from China) It's very close to the original size CRT. It fit into the space nice (I had to make a simple mounting bracket.), and the soft keys still line up.
 
On our Centurion 6, I replaced the CRT with a 12.1" bare LCD panel that I bought on Ebay. (shipped directly from China) It's very close to the original size CRT. It fit into the space nice (I had to make a simple mounting bracket.), and the soft keys still line up.

Did you get color for your trouble, or still monochrome?

Cheers
Trev
 
Did you get color for your trouble, or still monochrome?

Cheers
Trev

It's color, but the original CRT was color as well. I was able to up the resolution to 800x600, so It's quite a bit sharper than the original which was running at a much lower resolution. I think all of the Centurion 6's had color monitors.
 
It's color, but the original CRT was color as well. I was able to up the resolution to 800x600, so It's quite a bit sharper than the original which was running at a much lower resolution. I think all of the Centurion 6's had color monitors.

Thanks!

I have a Partner 4 with a Cent V control on it, and will eventually get it into operations, and the monitors are pretty well known for being a bit tetchy about being moved. Usually the Plaster of Paris or whatever it was they used to pot the connection on the back of the CRT, gets loose, it seems.

I was planning around planting a larger monitor and a keyboard somewhere convenient, but will also look at the replacement screens.


Cheers
Trev
 
Yeah, the Cent V control is based on, IIRC, a industrial 386 PC, with a drive on a board that takes the place of a hard drive. Pretty sure the Cent 6 is same on a slightly faster computer.

It has color VGA or SVGA output (sorry, used to know, cannot recall any longer) with an extension from the video output up to the box containing the monitor and the keys.

You should be able to fit almost any 14 or so inch monitor onto it. We grabbed a couple 17 inch Phillips units from our IT folks cupboard of 'maybe useful things', as they had a rep for auto-setting to odd resolutions very well, according to one of the guys in the shop that paid attention to such things at the time.

I bent up a frame for it out of Aluminum and mounted it on the screws that had held the original bezel in place.

Like I said, dead easy to test all the parts without making any permanent changes to the machine, as well as getting the upgrade from monochrome to color.

I know that a couple guys that post on the 'zone' forum, name not to be printed here, that have better DOS skills than I, that did a brain transplant using a single board computer on a backplane that was compatible with the drive cards, and they copied the operating system over to a hard drive.

Worth a dig around that Milltronics Forum.

Cheers
Trev

Tore into it this morning, and in about fifteen minutes we had a screen again. Got going on running the parts we had to get done, and tomorrow we'll try the LCD screen and see if that works.

Boss was really happy. You guys made me look good today,
Thanks.
 
Tore into it this morning, and in about fifteen minutes we had a screen again. Got going on running the parts we had to get done, and tomorrow we'll try the LCD screen and see if that works.

Boss was really happy. You guys made me look good today,
Thanks.

Great! Best of luck with the whole gig!

Cheers
Trev
 
Bumpin' this one guys:

Same animal, now it throws up a "low battery" alarm on startup.

When you hit F1, it takes me to the actual PC inside the machine. I have no pointing device, or any way to move the curser. I'm stuck.

The boss and I opened up the tower that's mounted inside the control cabinet, and looked for the battery, but no dice.

Anyone out there have suggestions on were to look for it,(the battery) or maybe even a pic?

Thanks in advance.
 
There is a battery on the simdisk board that is worth about $12. Square, 4 sordered through pins mounting it to the board.

It is responsible for storing the memory that holds the whatchamacallits, all the offsets, system info for the CNC system, etc. that is specific to the machine. I'll remember what they re called, later. :) Edit! Parameters! :P

We paid two days for two techs, and mileage from Edmonton to Cold Lake fucking TWICE, because my boss ordered me to not do the fix myself. I even had to show the techs what they were looking at and gave them the part number. Gravy for them, but it pained me...

Always sort of figured it would be a good spot to graft in a battery holder from Radio Shack, so that you could run a couple D cells....

Anyway...

Best of luck! Maybe we'll make you look good again! :)

Cheers
Trev
 
There is a battery on the simdisk board that is worth about $12. Square, 4 sordered through pins mounting it to the board.

It is responsible for storing the memory that holds the whatchamacallits, all the offsets, system info for the CNC system, etc. that is specific to the machine. I'll remember what they re called, later. :) Edit! Parameters! :P

We paid two days for two techs, and mileage from Edmonton to Cold Lake fucking TWICE, because my boss ordered me to not do the fix myself. I even had to show the techs what they were looking at and gave them the part number. Gravy for them, but it pained me...

Always sort of figured it would be a good spot to graft in a battery holder from Radio Shack, so that you could run a couple D cells....

Anyway...

Best of luck! Maybe we'll make you look good again! :)

Cheers
Trev

Aside from the CMOS/RTC battery, the Simdisk battery is a LTC-7P Keeper II, LTC-7P Eagle-Picher | Mouser OK, it's $18 now.

Cheers
Trev
 








 
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