Is there any member using the Frans Technology Mercury Controller? My Meistergrams PC912 and SM1612 are having controller problems and my local tech seems unable to resolve them.
As it is costing us much production, I am considering the purchase of the above controller.
I would very much like to hear from someone who has purchased one of these and whether it has proved to be worthwhile investment. Is there, indeed as claimed, a substantial increase in speed and reliability?

Myyk,

I will try this again I had typed up a lengthy reply only to have it Vanish into thin air.

I have worked with and personally know Fred from franstech. He in fact designed the CPU board that was used in most of the Meistergram systems. He is very knowledgeable with this product but only the electronics.

Although I have personally never used one of the controllers for a long period of time I have had the chance to test one for a few weeks. My personal feeling was that it was not that much different.

The one thing I always fall back on is the marriage of new electronics to old mechanics.

It has been tried in the past and failed. When Xenetech bought the Meistergram line and customer base. Xenetech thought that this would be a good revenue for them they could offer an upgrade package there controller and software to run the meistergram tables. Well what i experienced was it did not function well at all in fact most Meistergram customers that purchased this upgrade ended up with the Xenetech Table because they just could not get them to operate correctly.

In a sense this is what you would be doing with this new controller. Is it faster "yes" but only between letters and start and finish movement.
faster engraving will only make the quality of the engraving worse. is this worth the investment in my opinion "no". Remember you still have mechanical that is controlled by the electronics.

In all of my years working on this equipment if the engraving table was not properly tuned and functioning correctly it made no difference what electronics you put onto it.

This sort of equates to putting a brand new engine into your 1970 ford truck, sure the engine sounds and runs great but suddenly the transmission goes out and then the rear end and shocks,etc. before you no it you have replaced everything except the shell.

This equipment was designed and built with the controller that you are using, It has got to be 10 years maybe older. when these systems get older the parts start to wear, motors, leadscrews, nuts, bearings, etc. almost like putting a 2006 controller onto a 1990 table.

If I were to change the electronics I would completely rebuild the engraving table as well. Then your electronics are tuned to your mechanics.

Now onto the problem what is going on with the controller maybe I can help.

Thank you.I think you may have attempted to help me with our 912 before. We are using the 912 as a backup at present, but reliability is a problem.

We have had problems with the SM controller from the beginning. After replacing one of the connectors (front lower left inside the front) 3 times, we finally had the wires soldered directly to the board. It has run quite reliably up to the last 12 months or so, when we had to have the CMOS battery replaced. As the optional video card was not offered to us on purchase, this was quite a hassle.

A few weeks back, it suddenly began stopping in the middle of a job. It would initally reset OK. We would lose the job as it has never (from day 1) reset to exactly the same position.

Since then it has steadily got worse. Only occasionally, it will initialise, and that takes much longer than usual, then it just resets itself halfway through work. In fact, there are now a whole bunch of symptoms and it is difficult to pinpoint any direction to proceed in. We have to run a stepdown transformer as our mains voltage is 240. I must check that when I collect it from the serviceman.

The lack of the video card has resulted in my serviceman giving up on it as he is of the opinion that it is needed to perform diagnostics.

A few simple things that might solve the problem, and might not.

Replace the cable that goes to the connector that you had to solder directly to the board.

Very carefully, one at a time, remove each internal connector cable and plug it back in.

Very carefully, one at a time, remove each plug in chip and plug it back in.

It truly sounds like an intermittent connection. It usually is corrected by what I have suggested. If it is a noisy or flaky transistor inside a chip it will be tough to find the chip. It may also be a badly plated through hole in the board, again nearly impossible to find. Repairing every through hole is tedious and you cannot get at all of them, some are under chips.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

Thanks for that. I unplugged and replugged every connector that I could see without disassembling the controller. Can I clean the contacts with electrical contact cleaner?
My serviceman initially thought that it was a faulty floppy drive or badly seated ram chip. In fact, he swapped both items and then replaced them and thought it was fixed.
However, the machine ran for about an hour and the problems began again.
I assume you are aware that this model has a 486 motherboard inside as well as the DSP board and needs to read from a floppy to initialise the system.

Myyk,

Is your SM controller driving a servo system? If so I don't know if franstech has done the servo motor controller. You may want to check with them to be sure. There were some SM controllers that ran stepper motor systems.

My 1612 has steppers. I have been in touch with Franstech and have been offered a good deal, but just would like some independent feedback before proceeding. I thought I may be able to drive either table with the same Mercury controller, but not so.
The machine was purchased just before Meistergram sold to Xenetech.
so is not 10 years old.
The Floppy is 3.5 inch

Myyk,

If thats the case then I would look at this as a viable option. Those SM controllers were not that great and that 16x12 table is not that old so you would benefit from the newer controller. On the 912 It sounds like the table needs to be gone through.

At that point it makes a very good backup system, I would probably pass on upgrading the controller on that system.

As the immortal chuck would say thats my 2 cents want change!!

I have checked the installation date on the SM1612 and it was 1998. I quite liked the controller once we had overcome the initial problems as the digital readout was very handy, especially for that minimal adjustment on the Z-axiz when rotary engraving brass plates.
It's a pity that the 486 motherboard is not standard as I have a good one just lying around.
Thanks for your advice. It's quite difficult knowing how to proceed when you're way down at the other end of the planet from where the machine was manufactured.
I have heard some horror stories of 912's costing nearly NZ$2,000 to repair in our country. I guess that expertise in our field is not readily available here.

Myyk,
The Tower controller is great when it works properly but can be quite a pain to fix. If you have an SMWF of SMAF controller then a special (expensive) video card is required to view the boot up sequence of the controller. There is a way to bypass the motherboard and floppy portion of the controller and directly drive the engraver from the host computer. This can be very helpful in isolating the problem.
For more info contact me at chris@engravingsvc.com
Thanks,
Chris

Thanks Westy,
I took to another serviceman, and he has got it running. In fact it's running really well so far. All he did was clean contacts and push the IC's fully home. I appreciate your help. I guess there are just like engravers there are Servicemen who are good at different aspects of the trade.

Myyk,
Glad to hear of a simple fix. For future reference I have access to many of those controller parts.
Chris