M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

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nop
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M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

Post by nop »

Hi. I have a M-15 controller whose battery leaked during a period of disuse (COVID), and unfortunately it may have taken the motherboard with it. The EPROM looks fine, it's just the area around the battery that may be damaged. It looks like it will be necessary to remove the board, clean the area around the battery, and solder on a new socket to determine whether the board survived the leak. Was this a popular motherboard, and if so, are replacements available? Or does it make sense to replace the entire controller with a newer unit?
cncsnw
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Re: M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

Post by cncsnw »

There were four or five different motherboards used in different M15 models over the years.

However, regardless of which motherboard you have, the answer is probably that no replacements are available, and if your current one is damaged beyond repair, you had best look at retiring the M15 console and upgrading the controller (e.g. with an Allin1DC system).
nop
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Re: M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

Post by nop »

Hi cncsnw. You helped me replace the Z motor on this machine a couple years ago. Thanks again for that! https://centroidcncforum.com/viewtopic. ... 41&p=37330

I found the list of motherboards on your website. I'll pull ours to get a better look. If it's beyond repair, do you know if replacing it is simply a matter of plugging the controller components into a new board and transferring the ROM?

I will also check out the Allin1DC system. Thanks, again.
cncsnw
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Re: M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

Post by cncsnw »

There is no "ROM" that can or should be transferred.

If you find a working replacement motherboard of the same model, you would just install it in the console; plug the CPU7P3 board into the PC104 bus connector; and plug in the hard drive and other computer peripherals. All of the information about your machine setups is on the hard drive. Depending on the control model, your hard drive might be a traditional 3-1/2" IDE hard drive; or it might be a compact flash memory card in an IDE adapter; or it might be a compact flash memory card in a SATA adapter; or it might be a SATA solid-state hard drive.
nop
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Re: M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

Post by nop »

Thanks for this info, it's been very helpful.

The shielded ribbon cable that connects to the integrated flat panel display is damaged, and I'm having a tough time identifying it to order a replacement. Do you know the type? Fortunately, the external display port is working fine, so it's not a show-stopper. Actually, I'm curious what that (rainbow-colored) internal cable type is, too. Do you happen to know? It's nice that this board is dual-output.
cncsnw
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Re: M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

Post by cncsnw »

What model motherboard did it turn out to have?

If the external VGA cable looks like this one, then you would have either an Advantech PCM-4860 or PCM-4862, or an Aaeon PCM-6890, PCM-6893, PCM-8152 or PCM-LN02.
Attachments
AaeonVGAPigTail.JPG
nop
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Re: M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

Post by nop »

Thank you. It's the Advantech PCM-4860. That's indeed the cable for the external VGA connection. Do you happen to know what type of ribbon cable is used to connect the controller's (internal) flat-panel display? I'd like to replace mine while I'm in here.
nop
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Re: M-15 repair or replace motherboard, or upgrade?

Post by nop »

Hi again, @cncsnw . Do you have any of those CRT cables like the one in your photo (p/n 1701150150) for sale?
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