Today, I was in the shop doing a small piece when all of a sudden the Y axis got a mind of its own :devious:
It wants to move even if there is no command. On powerup, it starts to move in a "jerky" motion always in the positve direction (thankfully at a slow rate of an estimated 5IPM). I tried reseting the system, powering up without the control software running etc. If I reset the drives and hold the manual jog key to move in the Y minus direction it will do it.

Anybody have any ideas of what I should be looking for? :idea:

The system is a servo with the encoder on the lead screw and the drive is a gecko 320 running at 55 volts.

Any help will be appreciated.

Just browsing through the manual:

http://www.geckodrive.com/photos/G320_REV-4_MANUAL.pdf

I don't see a specific adjustment for what I know as "balance", which other types of amplifiers use to set the motor drift to zero when the control input voltage is zero.

Have you tried walking through the steps given in the manual, just to see if something is grossly out of adjustment?

HuFlungDung,
Well, doubt it is adjustment as it has been working for about 8 months with this setup!

Was about 80% the way through a file when it started acting up. Program takes about 30 minutes to run and I haven't had this problem before.

have you checked all your connections for looseness and for intermitance especially on the encoder connectors? Poor ground somewhere?

Bloy,
I am using US Digital encoders with that plug on it, and I agree with you, maybe it is causing a problem. Will check that out tomorrow.

I did remove the cover and the hed and found that some coolant had seeped in. Cleaned the hed and put it back together and tried it and still had the same problem. could be that connector?

hey i need some layouts for the control circuits thnx

Have you run this program before in a successful manner?

I agree with other comment here. Check all the encoder connectors? Did you change anything that could be puting alot of noice on the encoder line?

Viper,
No, this is the first time I have run this particular file. However, when I re-booted and had NO file loaded, it still did the same thing.

Ron,
As I said, everything was operating fine until I got near the end of this file. The condition occured all of a sudden.

I tend to think it might be something in the connection to the encoder. Just my gut feeling. I doubt it is a broken wire in the connection to the control panel as this particular wire does not flex like the X axis so I don't think it is physical movement related of the connection. I will have a go at it later today to see if I can trace it down. May try swapping the connections on another axis to see if the condition follows that way.

Do you have the same drive on the other axis (X)? If so could you temparaly swap the two?

Ron,
All 4 axis are Gecko 320/340 and I also have a couple of spares for another project!
But I still tend to think it might be the encoder/cable

Hi All
I had a similar problem with an Anilam2/Cholchester set-up, which was caused by the bulb (yep it was a bulb in those days) in the encoder blowing. I would suspect the encoder.