Make a Cannon
I have been corresponding with a old fellow named John Gerling about the X3 motor controller. He must be really old as he says he is older than me! 🙂 He is retired ( I am not) so I guess he does have the age credentials.
I found a link to him in the Little Machine Shop web site. Chris Wood, the owner of LMS, has a suggestion posted on the page where he sells the Sieg replacement board I need, to check John out if you have a Sieg controller board that needs serviced.
John is a retired electrical engineer who now has a small business repairing said controller boards. A recommendation from Chris is good enough for me, so I have been emailing John several times. John seems like a fair enough guy, a great repair flat rate (if repairable) and an otherwise good first choice if you have a bad board. Here is his website: http://www.www.repaircontrol.com. He calls himself Gerling Laboratories but the URL is a bit different. (Yes, two WWW’s?)
John, Chris and I all decided in my case that two burned through traces from lighting is not a good thing as certainly most other parts are affected (no more magic smoke left), so I have ordered a full replacement board from LMS.
John is also an active hobby machinist and has produced a very well done instruction manual for building an all brass cannon from raw stock. He gave me permission to publish the link to the manual. So it is free to you to download. He intended to publish the instruction manual as a part of a kit for a profit. I assume to invest in more tools for his retirement center.  http://www.cannon.repaircontrol.com
If you like his work and his manual, let him know. If you build the cannon, you might be inclined to order the kit of materials as a thank you. Tell him Dan’l sent you…