Brent Brown wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Wondering if anyone has any servicing experience with Technogym equipment 
> before? A friend of mine has 3 x Technogym Excite Run 700 treadmills in the gym 
> he works in. They are getting into the the habit of faulting and refusing to run. The 
> reported fault on the display is something like "equipment is blocked - refer to 
> sevice agent". The distributor of Technogym in NZ says replace the main 3 phase 
> motor controller board (NZD1500, ~ USD850). Contacting the Italian tech support 
> they also say replace the controller and don't talk to us, talk to our NZ agent.
> 
> The annoying thing is there is no obvious hard fault ~ all main power 
> semiconductors seem ok, nothing with smoke coming out of it. The excuse we're 
> given is that the equipment has been overloaded, due to lack of servicing the belt 
> creates too much friction and the controller is "blown". In practice it seems like we 
> get maybe 3 or so chances at this ~ the equipment faults, a power down-wait-power 
> up cycle clears the message and it runs again, but after "n" times the fault can not 
> be cleared and the unit must be replaced. I am starting to suspect a software 
> lockout mechanism using non-volatile memory. This goes against the grain of our 
> "can fix" attitude.
> 
> We've requested a technical explanation, asked for servicing information, asked if 
> they do a exchange service. The answer is no to everything, and the standard 
> reasons why this is impractical, impossible, what we are doing wrong etc. There's a 
> small chance someone on the list has had experience with Technogym products, 
> would love to hear form you. Thanks!
> 

No experience but I would remove the nvram from a good one, read it, 
dupe it and solder it onto the bad one to see if it is indeed just a 
scam.  If that fixes it, look at a socket to make it easier to swap out 
or whatever.
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