[One of Many]

Thanks for the tips George.

The TC4G is the CIB machine and it has no LCTLAUF board. We do not store programs on the machines. I suspected noise, but now that you mention the hard drive writing errors could be suspect. I'll try the scandisk approach and see how that checks out. My guess is that this happens when the program has finished and is in process of going back to tool 1 for the next part run.

As far as spindle drift, is that in terms of orientation or Z axis? I have seen no indication of that on either machine.

I have learned that the LCTLAUF board is handed control on the non-CIB machine in a canned cycle seperate from the BMDC. As I understand it, the CIB tool change is handled by discrete I/O relay boards with the MB CPU as the controller via a software macro. Somewhere along the sequence there must be communication to hold the current tool number and the M6 tool change parameter active and pending. Whether that information gets dumped due to another issue that does not allow the canned cycle to complete is what I am suspecting. The offending step contributing in the sequence is what I was going to focus on......if I could catch it in the act or duplicate the fault.

The air filters are changed once every 3-4 months as part of our normal PM schedule. EMI sure is proud of those things!

I would not expect it to be heat related at this point. The ambient temp in the building is fairly consistant around 70deg.

I have yet to witness the fault occur on either machine. By the time I am informed that there is a problem, all I can do is reset the tool changer issues, check out the tool change sequence and then tell the operator to go back to production.

I am worried that the tool changer transport gearbox will become a victim if this continues.

DC