Today, I connected the control cable from my S3 to my new VFD while the S3 was powered on. The VFD was unplugged.
I now own a very large, very expensive brick. Hopefully the VFD survived, I obviously can’t test it now.
Yes, I know I shouldn’t have done that. Still, I find it massively disappointing that connecting a control cable while the machine is on is enough to kill the controller.
Holy Smoke!!!
I would have figured they would have had some sort of opto-isolation to protect the board.
I’ve already planned my escape if I was in your shoes. I would be installing a set of Geckodrives, a Warp9 Smoothstepper, connected to a PC with a PMDX breakout board.
Well, a new PCB installed into the old enclosure, and a power supply, and everything is working again. Looks like the VFD survived!
The power supply was probably OK, but for 30 bucks, why take a chance?
All in, my mistake cost me $130, which is nowhere near the most expensive mistake I’ve made!