Electronic Repair - Experience and Endorsement / Recommendation

There have been threads recently about repairing this electronic board or that electronic board ( often regarding Haas servo amps ) and so I feel this very relevant at the moment.

We recently had our turning center go down. It would power up, but that was it. Nothing more. After much diagnosis it was narrowed down to this one board. The problem? The board is no longer available, and has not been for some time. The market is reliant upon the stock that exists, and being able to repair those when they pop.

As if that was not bad enough, there are apparently only two actual places in the country that actually repair them. And both of them are a core exchange only option. Give your old board to them, along with a large sum of money and they will send you a repaired board. If your board is not deemed worthy, you can pay even more because of it.

My EE friend that is my normal "go-to" in these situations was not available to me, and would not be for some time. We needed the machine running, and we needed it running yesterday. Going on past experiences, and learning what I could from him, I decided to replace the normal culprits like power components. There are not many on this board, so I went ahead and ordered replacements for the FETs, a voltage regulator, and a voltage reference. The voltage regulator replacement went very well. Smooth and easy. And I should have stopped there...

The FET replacements went sideways. And quickly. The traces pulled out of the board and ruined any hope of my amateur hands getting them fitted again. This is a multi layer board now and it was a mess. We were looking fairly screwed, and by my own hand.


While commenting in another of those other threads, a forum member that I am mildly acquainted with offered to look at the board for me, and fix it if it was possible. I agreed, and offered to pay his fees. He asked for the schematics and diagnostics if we had them. And there's the rub - There are none. Someone has done an excellent job of keeping any and all information about this one board from making it to the interwebs over the last 20 years. So he would be forced to work blind...

We shipped the board FedEx to Skyler ( member Bug Robotics ) and he got to work immediately. He repaired the multi level carnage I had caused, and diagnosed other things while he was in there. Without aid or benefit of a schematic and without diagnostics to guide him. He ended up also finding the RS422 chip had gone bad and replaced that as well.

The board arrived back here in less than 4 days. Only one issue remained. Skyler mentioned that he had wanted to replace the SIMM memory stick but did not have one there. I did. I replaced the memory and the board is functioning as good as new. And now, with refreshed components.

Skyler's price was RIDICULOUS. As in, incredibly less expensive than one would expect for such service. The bottom line here is that if you have the need for electronic repair and are hitting walls trying to find someone good that also has great service, along with good pricing, then do yourself a favor and call upon Skyler at Bug Robotics. You will not be disappointed. He'll be my first call from here on out.

We get no consideration for posting this. We are simply a very satisfied customer and thought to let other forum members know about this resource.

Thank you Bug Robotics! You have saved our butts.

Thanks again for the kind works Zahnrad. Happy you're up and running.

yes, Haas doesn't/won't repair anything. only a core trade-in on their expensive boards (for 1/2 retail ! (yay!) but i'll
bet it is still cheaper than most other mfgs would do. Haas has made a kabillion machines that share similar controls
so they're not going to share any schematics any time soon....it'd be bad for business. i'm sure they make a killing
fixing dead boards with a failed $2 part. someone else could also make a killing repairing and/or modding haas boards.
anyway, in the future ....if you intend to work on electronic circuit boards get yourself a desoldering
station or a good continuous vacuum desoldering tool, and some solder wick. you won't wreck any more traces if you're
careful.

That mostly depends on the boards in my experience. I do a lot of electronics repair also and I've found that good quality boards hold onto their traces/tracks/pads a heck of a lot better than the ones from cheap-o manufacturers. No matter whether you use desoldering wick or a desoldering gun. If you aren't using the right tools for the job, any board will go to shit pretty quick.

Good job Bug!

tnmgcarbide said:

anyway, in the future ....if you intend to work on electronic circuit boards get yourself a desoldering station or a good continuous vacuum desoldering tool, and some solder wick. you won't wreck any more traces if you're careful.

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Nah. My ham fisted efforts can wreck just about anything I put my mind to. To be clear - I did purchase a brandy new desoldering station AND some solder wick. Along with syringe of flux, and various and sundry other tools for the job. It is not my area of expertise, and I am better off leaving it to those that are good at it. Period.

One saving grace to my ego is that I was told that the board is very old and this style of board ( along with being aged ) is prone to these types of faults during repair efforts. Skyler actually had to use new grommets, uncover traces, repair traces, and re-epoxy the layers. I can not properly impress upon you the amount of expert, SKILLED WORK he applied to this repair.

I don't impress easily. My thinking is that even if I cannot do something, there are countless other humans that can, and do. But the skill, speed, and professionalism that this was done with is impressive. The price made it all amazing. Enough so to render the soldering iron a moot point and simply print out a FedEx label in the future.

... which reminds me... I have that other Haas servo amp that... "Hey Skyler...!" ...

Bookmarked for when my Haas board inevitably fails...ha.

Zahnrad Kopf said:

ham fisted

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Why amateur radio is called ham radio...useless tidbit of the day

plastikdreams said:

Why amateur radio is called ham radio...useless tidbit of the day

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Actually it probably came from mediocre actors who were called "ham actors".

Bill

ZK, don't feel bad about your issue with the multi-layer circuit board. When I worked at Litton Industries as a technical writer, the circuit board rework department had more employees than the board manufacturing area. Boards were a major failure item in their designs at that time (Late 1970's)

You are very fortunate to have a friend in the business. My friend bought a Mori Seiki SL3 that had a bad servo amplifier when he got it. It cost him over $1,000 to have the board repaired.

Newman109 said:

ZK, don't feel bad about your issue with the multi-layer circuit board. When I worked at Litton Industries as a technical writer, the circuit board rework department had more employees than the board manufacturing area. Boards were a major failure item in their designs at that time (Late 1970's)

You are very fortunate to have a friend in the business. My friend bought a Mori Seiki SL3 that had a bad servo amplifier when he got it. It cost him over $1,000 to have the board repaired.

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well fuck haas! if i can buy an old mori-seiki, and fix it up for $1k , i'd be stoked! (perhaps it was the same old
Mori that made the parts for my haas) the trade-ins for boards have ranged for $900(4th axis amp) to $2400,
(video...whatevr rs232 floppy disk interface board.) and vector drive (mitsubishi, shoulda' been generic , $1600. )

tnmgcarbide said:

well fuck haas! if i can buy an old mori-seiki, and fix it up for $1k , i'd be stoked! (perhaps it was the same old
Mori that made the parts for my haas) the trade-ins for boards have ranged for $900(4th axis amp) to $2400,
(video...whatevr rs232 floppy disk interface board.) and vector drive (mitsubishi, shoulda' been generic , $1600. )

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He had a similar problem with servo amplifiers on his previous Mazak. Every board repair seems to start out at $1,000 and up, even if it's a single chip or resistor.

That Mori has paid for itself many times over in the past 6 years since he bought it. I've watched it spit out parts and it's a great unit.

9100 said:

Actually it probably came from mediocre actors who were called "ham actors".

Bill

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Neg...it came from the western union term of ham fisted operator, a derogitory term for someone who was poor or sloppy sending Morse code. The term "fist" is still used today to describe the same over the air. I'm a fist, I can't send or receive Morse to save my life.

I don't know jack shite about radios, morse code, or the Bat Signal. All I know is Bug Robotics was just dandy with email and a wizard with a soldering iron, and that was good enough for me.

having done that stuff myself in the past, it seems you got a deal, and are justifiably happy. It's not that easy, and takes several skills at once.

And, it is entirely too easy to do what you did. It can happen to very skilled persons also, especially if they are not the first ones to touch the board, or if the board is constructed in certain ways that make it much harder to fix.

If you want real fun, try a board with wide heavy traces, and several layers, in the high current areas. It can be near impossible to remove things effectively without very specialized equipment, because the board carries heat away from the joints so well.

Obviously the Bug Robotics person is a good resource.

plastikdreams said:

Neg...it came from the western union term of ham fisted operator, a derogitory term for someone who was poor or sloppy sending Morse code. The term "fist" is still used today to describe the same over the air. I'm a fist, I can't send or receive Morse to save my life.

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"Fist" is a term like "accent". It refers to an operator's style, neither positive nor negative. Unless someone is using an electronic keyer, his spacing will not be perfect and will be a signature. A bad operator is called "lid".

Bill

JST said:

having done that stuff myself in the past, it seems you got a deal, and are justifiably happy. It's not that easy, and takes several skills at once.

... < SNIP> ...

Obviously the Bug Robotics person is a good resource.

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That almost sums up the reasoning for the original post. The more complete picture is that there are many of us here that are small shops, like us. Many times you will hear people admonish how it is a no brainer to pay the ransoms of $2500 for this board, or $4000 for that board. After all, what price do we put on the business lost? The down time?

But the sad facts of the matter are that more often than not, it is simply a huge pill to swallow for many small shops and most times these prices have zero relation to the realities of their costs. So when someone finds another small business owner willing to do good work, having the skills to do so, operating professionally, and charging reasonably for these things I think it is important to share that information, rally around them, and support them when their services are needed.

Happy? No... I am THRILLED. Ecstatic, even. I may not have a Rolodex any longer, but Bug Robotics got tagged seven ways to Sunday in my contacts. And then I wrote his info inside the cabinet with a sharpie. Too, I have to admit that it's nice to be able to send a mystery out for repair and not have to live in butt clenching fear of the ramifications to one's business or one's wallet for the pleasure.

9100 said:

"Fist" is a term like "accent". It refers to an operator's style, neither positive nor negative. Unless someone is using an electronic keyer, his spacing will not be perfect and will be a signature. A bad operator is called "lid".

Bill

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Pretty much, basically it's like saying this guy must be using his fist lol...now, I've seen almost fist fights over the use of lid lol

As far as spacing and whatnot some if the guys I know will run you right off if you aren't damn near perfect. Listening to them is like music, 35wpm or more with accuracy​ of an ekey...it's amazing. There used to be a group of guys, older gents, that hung out low on 80m and they were 60wpm on paddles and bugs, and they could tell if someone tried to break with an ekey, boy did it go down hill.

Sorry for the hyjack, its kinda sorta electronic related lol

I spent almost my whole working career performing component level repairs on electronic circuit boards in the TV industry. I often had to repair equipment with no schematics or other literature and it is no fun. I would disagree with some of your statements. One manufacturer who's boards I worked on was one of the most respected in that business for many years: they are out of that industry now. But their PCBs were terrible. No matter what equipment or desoldering techniques you used, the traces peeled off the boards in an instant. The only conclusion I could come to was that their board maker, perhaps their own facility, did a really bad job of making those boards. But, as I said, their equipment was top notch in the industry. It performed better and needed less maintenance than most others.

I guess you could say that the PCB maker was cheap, but the equipment they were in wasn't. The equipment was the most expensive and highest performance available.

As for the "right" tools, I found that technique was a lot more important then the tools. Several shops that I worked in had the top notch soldering and unsoldering tools. An inexperienced tech. could ruin a board in seconds with that top notch equipment. I usually used a fairly high wattage, Weller temperature controlled iron which was set at the LOWEST temperature setting possible and a good solder sucker. High wattage iron at a low temperature would provide enough heat to melt the solder quickly but keep the temperature down below levels that would damage the board. A third thing that I found helpful was a knife edged tool for prying the component leads off the pads while the solder was hot to allow more complete removal of the solder with the solder sucker. That's it. It is the technique that counts far more than the actual tools and I learned that after years of work on sub-standard PCBs. On the other hand you don't want to use an iron that is suitable for soldering large parts on a PCB.

As far as working on mystery boards, I would have added electrolytic capacitors to that list of semiconductor devices that your man replaced. Even good quality electrolytics go bad after some years. Cheap insurance at that point.

As for the overall problem, electronic devices will go bad after some years of use. I had a 45+ year career based on that and the need to keep things running with minimum down time. If you think it is bad in a shop when a CNC machining center goes down, try being the responsible person at a TV station when they can't air programs or commercials. I actually bought a seat on a passenger plane for a repair part once. And taxis to take it to and from the airports. And tips to the drivers to ensure that they rushed it. We were completely off the air for about 12 hours and although it was a super cheap UHF station, no expense was questioned.

I guess my point is that if management wants no down time, then they have to be willing to pay for no down time. Nothing runs forever without down time. If they want their machines repaired quickly, why did THEY not insure that they came with complete repair manuals. I have seen over two feet of bookshelf space taken up by manuals with complete repair and adjustment manuals with full schematics, layouts, and parts lists. Why does a shop management buy machines that do not include such information? Why do they not have working repair parts sitting on a shelf at the facility: spare boards that can be swapped in in a few minutes? And the parts to repair those boards? And mechanical parts? And why do they not have qualified people on staff or at least on call that can repair those machines? It is not only the manufacturers of this equipment that are cheap, the users of it also are. Now, I understand that economics may dictate much of this. But it should not come as a surprise when a machine goes down and it takes some time to get it working again. And if it is several decades old or from a fly-by-night manufacturer, then it should not be any surprise if repair parts are not available. These things need to be looked at UP FRONT when the equipment is initially purchased, not just when the panic sets in. Believe me, I lived with this kind of situation almost every day of my career. And I had to handle the situations far, far too many times.

That tech that the OP found and sent the board to is a good man. He should send him a bonus and tell the boss it is cheap insurance for when the next problem pops up. Keep him happy. Very happy.

eKretz said:

That mostly depends on the boards in my experience. I do a lot of electronics repair also and I've found that good quality boards hold onto their traces/tracks/pads a heck of a lot better than the ones from cheap-o manufacturers. No matter whether you use desoldering wick or a desoldering gun. If you aren't using the right tools for the job, any board will go to shit pretty quick.

Good job Bug!

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Ok if you buy a used and old machine (cheap) then Do yourself a favor and learn the basic troubleshooting and electrical skills, and buy a soldering station, solder sucker, and so on.

It's usually the worst possible moment that things go sideways, been there and fixed it.

Boss called tech for a repair on an older big okuma lathe, z axis driver was not doing anything, and the tech responded with a two days to week down time minimum.
Knowing I had repaired stuff in the past he asks if I can take a look, time is money and we were in a hurry.
Swapped drivers on x and z and yes, card is mute.
Didn't take long to trace the fault to one of the logic side feed capacitors, problem was it was on a rare side, fortunately knew a buddy that might have some. Made the call and drove 60km to get the part, he had it checked and ready to go.
We where back in action in 6 hours of the malfunction, and I was paid a bonus for every hour I worked on the machine and got it running again.

I'm no service tech, but I like tinkering with electronics and stuff, basic skills and common sense with a multimeter can get you long ways in trouble shooting and repair.

Marko

As for the big iron at minimum temp.... That is a good approach in many cases.

But sometimes you want a very HOT iron. That often allows you to be in and out with the part removed before things around it heat up.

Kind of like radiator repair.... try fixing a leak with a propane torch and you will make it worse fast by melting much more than you want to. Use a small acetylene torch, and you can do the job and melt only right where you need to.....the job is done before a spot a half inch away is even very warm.

You have to know which is the way to go in any particular situation.