When we put on the 4th we usually do what you suggested, and we did that many times on Friday. Double checked the plug, in and out about 10 times, nothing. The only thing I had done this morning, was flip the video on and it came up blank, I was putting the covers back on the 4th, (took 'em off to check and see if there was any wire damage). the screen came up blank for about 5 minutes, and then about 10 minutes later it came back to life, thats when I tried a CS and the 4th took off.
I'm wondering if there is another underlying problem since when I power up and CS(been doing for a few months now) it cold starts fine and then when it says hit start to return to the machine zero, it completely freezes. So I just go to jog and run the Y 9.5" and zero the X and Y. It used to do this fine.
I'm just getting fed up with this machine, we've had it just under a year, 2 driver boards, many days down with stupid problems like the above, new bellville washers, Z axis bearings, spindle chiller pump going to hell. Resetting the backlash all the time, crappy wiring coming loose. I do like it though, the full 4th is great, the large table is really nice and for the price, you can't beat it ('97 btw). But, the other 'real' machine I set up all the time is a Mazak FJV20 and the difference is night and day. '95 with low use, but you bump it a tenth, and it goes a tenth, either direction. It will interpolate a hole at 200ipm within 2 tenths, and chatter, whats chatter, oh wait, the Fadals chattering... again. Tool life, can't even compare. We had one nasty little 13-8 part on the fadal. 1hr 15min just to keep a reasonable tool life, lots of small slot work. Had to move it over to the mazak and the run time dropped to 48min, and it NEVER broke a tool, no offsets at all either. granted it only made 40 where as the Fadal make 170 but still if the endmills broke on the next part, that was triple the life of the Fadal, at 2/3 the run time.
Ok, I'm done. I understand a Fadal is what it is, a decent machine at an affordable price, but going from one to the other is really really tough.  |