Any DRO experts in?

[Stueeee]

My 'new to me' big lathe came with a CHFOIC branded 2 axis DRO, is of Chinese manufacture like a lot of this modern stuff. Was working fine, now the DRO seems to be failing its Power On Self Test. The manual is in Chinglish and the troubleshooting section doesn't go much beyond a 'no display, change the fuse' level of complexity.

So, it looks like I need to buy a new head unit. The issue being that I can't find the same branded unit except as part of a kit that comes with the X & Z scales. From the thin information on the 'net it appears that the CHFOIC scale interface uses something called JCXE with the pinouts as below. Any ideas for a suitable head unit would be most welcome. Thanks for reading.

 

[Shox Dr]

Looks like a SINO head. Have a look on Machine-DRO. for a manual

 

[Agroshield]

Have a look on the touch-DRO site. He lists the pin outs for a lot of scales.

It is very easy to make up a short DB9 male to DB9 female lead to convert one pin out to another. Saves trying to mess with either the scale or the head.

 

[Hopefuldave]

They often start failing the self-test when the internal battery fails, as it's only a couple of Local Currency Units and 5 minutes with a screwdriver and soldering iron it might be worth changing it on the chance - you'll have to go through the setup procedure again (what scale resolution, lathe vs mill) afterwards as the battery props all that up.

Dave H. (the other one)

 

[addjunkie]

They often start failing the self-test when the internal battery fails, as it's only a couple of Local Currency Units and 5 minutes with a screwdriver and soldering iron it might be worth changing it on the chance - you'll have to go through the setup procedure again (what scale resolution, lathe vs mill) afterwards as the battery props all that up.

Dave H. (the other one)

Think this is whats wring with mine. Must getround to it!

 

[Stueeee]

Thanks very much for the useful replies. I will have look for and change the battery. I'm not going to make it any more broken. I do have a backup plan as a mate has given me something that he picked up that he thought would come in handy one day.

with the information on touchdro I should be able to get this new head working if the battery trick doesn't fix the problem. I feel in need of some good news having spilt a whole mug of tea Into my (turned on at the time) laptop this afternoon. I'm Hoping the SSD at least will have survived the flood once the laptop has dried out. Once again, thanks all.

 

[Stueeee]

stripped the CHFOIC head unit this afternoon, only thing on the PCB thatlooks like it might be a battery is this thing.

other side of the PCB

Googling the number FD-1205 drew a blank. Could it be a 1.2v rechargeable cell?

 

[Pete.]

That Sino is a milling machine head unit but you should be able to get basic functions from it.

Stueeee what is the pin pitch on the battery you have? 1205 could be 12mm pitch 5v or it could be 5mm pitch 12 (or 1.2)v. Or it could be nothing like that

 

[galooph]

That FD-1205X looks like a buzzer to me, not a battery.

 

[addjunkie]

Im thinking battery as its got a + sign.

a guy https://www.gtprecision.co.uk/ is by all accounts the Mr fix it for-these things

 

[Pete.]

That FD-1205X looks like a buzzer to me, not a battery.

I think you're right mine both beep when powered up.

 

[Neilj]

Looks like one of those small piezo buzzers to me as well. Any chance of a couple of pics of the entire board, one of each side?

 

[Agroshield]

I'm thinking battery as its got a + sign.

As the others have said, it is a buzzer. It needs to be connected with the correct polarity else it will be a rezzub.

Search 1205 buzzer for many similar parts 12mm dia. 9.5mm high, 5v nominal.

 

[Stueeee]

That FD-1205X looks like a buzzer to me, not a battery.

That would explain why it's on the back of the circuit board which faces a thin metal sheet which would make a good sounding board. There isn't really anything else other than SM chips or 7 segment LEDs on either PCB. I'll take look for a battery inside the power supply, it's got a lot of shielding around it at the moment.

 

[Stueeee]

That Sino is a milling machine head unit but you should be able to get basic functions from it.

The Sino head did come with a manual. It's possible to configure it for Mill, lathe or grinder. WRT the lathe setting, the only difference I can see is that you can have radius or diameter displayed for the X axis. Even that facility makes it streets ahead of the Heidenhain unit on my S & B model 'A' which can't even do metric to imperial conversion at non zero readings.

 

[fizzy]

There are plenty of display units out there just all rebranded. If it looks the same it should be the same. They are also pretty easy to configure to whatever scales you have.

 

[Hopefuldave]

stripped the CHFOIC head unit this afternoon, only thing on the PCB thatlooks like it might be a battery is this thing.
View attachment 385605
other side of the PCBView attachment 385606
Googling the number FD-1205 drew a blank. Could it be a 1.2v rechargeable cell?

Pics of the whole of each side would help! The batteries are usually 3v for memory backup etc and soldered in, some examples:

Dave H. (the other one)

 

[Stueeee]

Any chance of a couple of pics of the entire board, one of each side?

For completeness, here's the inside of the power supply, wasn't expecting the battery to be there, but not seeing it on the PCB....

 

[m_c]

Lots of these things will just use EEPROM for storing now, as most microprocessors have it integrated.
It's not like 30 years ago, where EEPROM was expensive and unreliable, so designers relied far more on backup batteries.


The only question I have over the scale pinout, is the R+ pin.
Is it just another name for an index pin (would typically be I or Z), is it using scales with variable index marks (you don't need to re-index, just move the scale until it's passed two marks, and it knows exactly where the reader head is on the scale), or something totally separate?
However, having just checked the typical Chinese DRO pinout, I'm going to guess it's just a translation issue.

Try plugging the scales into that new SINO DRO, and see if they work as expected.

 

[Pete.]

The head unit shoud still POST with the scales unplugged so that would be an easy test.