New Mach2 - not working

[ers126]

Howdy all-

Just got my Mach2 all setup and am having some trouble. When I plug in the power cable to the compressor unit the 4 LEDs all come on for ~3seconds and then turn off. I get nothing on the LCD display and pushing the power button does nothing. (I have confirmed the power button is hooked to the blue/white wires that run to the compressor)

Any ideas? I could use some help.

Thanks,

Eric

 

[hardw1re]

Do you get the blinking green light or nothing at the back when you just have the power cord in?

 

[fatty]

Unplug everything from the mobo then just short the pins on the blue and white wires see if the unit fires up where did you buy the unit from was it new did you buy it from phil???

 

[ers126]

Unplug everything from the mobo then just short the pins on the blue and white wires see if the unit fires up where did you buy the unit from was it new did you buy it from phil???

Thanks for the quick replies! A little progress - I unplugged everything and did get the single flashing green light. I started replugging wires while the green light was still blinking and it kept on blinking so I thought I was in good shape but shorting the blue/white wires did nothing still.

When I plugged in the silver box power supply the board automatically tried to power up but the mach2 shut it down and turned on the compressor (finally!). I got the 1 yellow light for ~2min and then the second yellow light came on and it tried to power up the board, but that only lasted about 5 seconds before it shut down the board and the compressor and I was back to 1 blinking green light.

Also, in all of this the LCD never came on. Is this normal behavior or is my unit messed up?

BTW, I got my unit new from a friend who got it ~1.5yrs ago but never got around to putting it together. Unfortunately he lost the manual and the company is out of business so I've been going off what I could find on websites as far as putting it together. So, if there's anything that would be obvious if I had the manual please let me know.

Also - I saw some other threads mentioning reseting problems that sounded possibly related but searching the forum didn't turn up any posting with enough detail for me to tell what the original issue was. Is there a place this is documented?

Thanks,

Eric

 

[hardw1re]

When the unit powers up (the 2nd orange light coming on), use a screwdriver and short across the power pins on the motherboard itself to turn the motherboard on. and see if it stay's on then. If it does is it the GT? so then u have the usb cable? cause then you can update the firmware and that might fix it from having boot problems.

 

[fatty]

Open the side of the unit and see where the white and blue wires are plugged into if it is above the yellow then it is in the right spot if the yellow wires are above it swop them over

also unplug everything from the mobo then plug the power cable into the mach the 240v one if the green light blinks short the blue and white wires if this does nothing get a piece of wire or paper clip or staple whatever and short the wires the mach should start the display should light up as soon as you add the 240v power cable to the rear of the mach

 

[ers126]

When the unit powers up (the 2nd orange light coming on), use a screwdriver and short across the power pins on the motherboard itself to turn the motherboard on. and see if it stay's on then. If it does is it the GT? so then u have the usb cable? cause then you can update the firmware and that might fix it from having boot problems.

OK - I'm up and running a bit at least. Seems that the yellow wires are keeping power_on asserted and shutting the motherboard back off. I disconnected them and tuned the board on manually after the second yellow light came on and finally am booting. However, still no LCD... I verified the wires are connected between the LCD and the control board - any other reports of LCD's not working?

 

[hardw1re]

i dont know but i just recently changed my ST controller to GT and had same boot probs i started mine same way i just suggested. I dont have LCD so i dont know about that. But wat i can suggest is if you hook a usb cable up between the motherboard and the controller so then you can update the firmware that might make the LCD work.

 

[ers126]

i dont know but i just recently changed my ST controller to GT and had same boot probs i started mine same way i just suggested. I dont have LCD so i dont know about that. But wat i can suggest is if you hook a usb cable up between the motherboard and the controller so then you can update the firmware that might make the LCD work.

Man this thing is pissing me off... So I had it booting - once. I shutdown the machine to add in a card and went to reboot it (having been off >1hr and well cooled down) and I'm back to not working.

When I plug in power to the compressor unit now I don't even get the 1 green light and of course hitting the power button does nothing. I tried unplugging everything between the board and compressor unit again but this time no luck - still nothing when I plug in the power cord to the compressor unit. (I did update the firmware while I had it powered)

When I hooked the 4pin power cable between motherboard and compressor back up and force the mother board to power up the compressor does seem to respond by turning on the green light breifly and then giving me 2yellow/red and shutting down. The interesting part here is I don't have the power button wires hooked up to the motherboard so I'm not sure how the compressor is able to shut down the whole thing but it definitely does. All I can think of is maybe it is overcurrenting the ATX supply causing it to switch off. Anyone confirm this?

So far my first impressions of the mach2 are pretty poor. Also, I figured out why the LCD panel wasn't working - they didn't line up the pins on the 16-pin connector where the LCD cable plugs into the controller board! (cable offset 1pin to right). I fixed that and did see the backlight on the LCD at least come on during one of the times I forced the motherboard on but that seems to be independant of my problems getting the lovely thing to turn on properly...

Since nVentiv is gone under and it looks like I won't get any help there - does anyone have schematics or design files for the controller board?

 

[hardw1re]

which firmware did you update it too?

 

[ers126]

which firmware did you update it too?

I tried the 798 first and then was on holiday last week so I just tried 821 last night. Still not working.

It definitely appears that I am not pulling any power from the compressor's main AC input and only from the 4pin power cable to the motherboard's ATX supply.

 

[fatty]

Sounds like the compressor may be broken then?? And unless you are very electricaly minded you will not be able to test this yourself.....I guess you have 2 options one is buy a new control board off Phil and see if that works and two send the unit to Phil and see if it is worth repairing or actualy what is wrong with it...

 

[ers126]

Sounds like the compressor may be broken then?? And unless you are very electricaly minded you will not be able to test this yourself.....I guess you have 2 options one is buy a new control board off Phil and see if that works and two send the unit to Phil and see if it is worth repairing or actualy what is wrong with it...

It's starting to look like the compressor is suspect. I found out the fuse was blown but the fuse keeps blowing when I replace it.

I've tried replacing the fuse twice with 6A fuses (double the 3A fuse that was in it originally) and it blows everytime I try to power up the unit. The AC-DC transformer/supplies seem to work - at least enough to give me the blinking green LED. I tried powering up via the normal power pins with no other connections to the motherboard and also with the motherboard hooked up by forcing a powerup - fuse blew immediately both times.

Any tips on testing the compressor? I'm fairly electrically minded and could bring the system into work to test it.

Also, when I turned the unit on it's side there was a metal-hitting-metal "clunk" like there may be something loose in the compressor. Is this normal? It did work at least once so I think it might be some sort of intermittant problem.

Thanks