I recently acquired a CNC retrofit mill with a Galil 1842 and 1900.  The electrician did a horrible job of labeling/identifying wiring during disassembly and shipping.  Working with the documentation I got the axis all working correctly but was having problems with the relays for motor forward, motor reverse, coolant on/off....  The documentation covers many models and there are different options so I called support to see if I had opto-isolation and better understand how it should work and be wired.
I've read that these are awesome boards and the support is great but my experience was different.  First keep in mind they were apparently at a trade show so were short staffed (one guy).  As I called through the day I was told he was out to lunch, it appears for about 2 hours, then later he was apparently on a break for about an hour and half.  As I neared the end of the day he asked for the serial number and I said I'd have to run to the shop to get that (5 minutes).  I asked if they were east coast or west coast to see when they might be closing and he said they were west coast to which I replied, "oh, so you'll be open for a bit longer" as it was about 4:15PST.  I ran up and got it then immediately called back and the receptionist said he was gone for the day.  He knew I was calling back in 5 minutes or less and didn't indicate that he was leaving or end of shift...so I emailed the serial number.  All that, eh, a pain but nothing I can't work through.

This morning when I called he asked where I had bought the board and I said it came with the mill I purchased from a commercial machine shop.  He said it was sold to CamSoft and I'd have to ask them my questions.  I was asking a very specific Galil question.  Motor reverse doesn't work which is output 2 on the Galil board.  I verified in the CNC software that the bit is changing states, using the Galil terminal I verified the bit is changing states (_OP returns a 2, that is Output 2) and I moved the wire to another Output on the 1900, flipped that outputs state, and the motor runs in reverse just fine.  This would all seem to indicate that the Galil Output 2 is bad and I was just calling to verify that.  It's not a big deal as I'm only using 3 of the 8 outputs and I can move it.  I just wanted to know the true result of my findings as it related to the direct query and use of the Galil board.  He repeated evaded my questions saying I'd have to contact CamSoft although I told him the machine doesn't run CamSoft and I was working directly with the Galil components.

So, with all that said...when I bought this I thought about scrapping all of the parts/pieces and doing new retrofit.  This seems to work and seems to work pretty well.  However, I definitely got the impression the company doesn't want to work with you unless they sold you the hardware.  Although I'm a 'hobby' user I'm not interested in running a system that has hardware the manufacturer won't support unless you are the original purchaser.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks,

Mark

Unfortunately, Galil has been plagued with support calls from people that buy the surplus controllers that have been dumped on the auctions sites.  And we are partly to blame.    But most of the time they will support these controllers if they were sold by Galil in the first place.

They also sell controllers to companies at a reduced cost with the agreement that these companies provide the support.  I think this is what happened to you.

I have a few Galil 1341 VME bus controllers that if you call Galil with a question about, they ask "What is a 1341?".  They do special boards for companies that were never meant to be in the "wild".  They are like one off designs and they cannot possibly be supported.  Their support techs will not even know of their existence.

If your controller does indeed have a bad input, then Galil will service it for a very modest fee.  Just follow their return instructions on their site.  I've had numerous controllers repaired and I have never been disappointed or sticker shocked.  

Also, you can post to their web forum and get a lot of help there from the Galil staff as well as other users.

I still think Galil is a very friendly company.  Much better than others that I shall refrain from naming.

Steve

Thanks, appreciate the feedback and it makes sense.

In the short time I've had my Galil components I've found the outstanding support I needed....right here in this forum.

Mark

My experience with Galil US was good very fast answers no bull*********. But NO SUPPORT FOR SECONDHAND Controllers was clearly mentioned.
ILia
P.S How else we suppose to learn they stuff???