Problem- Bridgeport lathe cnc ez path

[J Hailmann]

My 1995 bridgeport romi lathe won't home. The cross slide just jumps a quarter inch and gives me an alarm. No number to the alarm,just says alarm. What do I do. No one within 200 miles to help me. Don't want a long distance service call , Springfield,Mo. Jim

[Gncc50]

I'm certainly no tech guy.

I have had the home limit switches stick, try a little WD 40. Just a thought.

[J Hailmann]

Tried the limit switches. It is something with a circuit board of some kind. Jim

[machintek]

If it jumps, it may be a velocity loop issue.
The EZPATH 1 had DC servo motors which had a tach on it. Add to the list of probabilities is that the X axis had a cable that flexes as the carriage moves to and from the chuck. There may be a broken wire, poor connection some where, etc. Possibly a bad logic board or bad drive board too.
You can swap motors. At least it will prove out if the motor assembly is good. Then the drive boards.

George

[J Hailmann]

George, I have to think it's a board somewhere(I don't know what board is what) I had a different alarm so I took the large board(don't know what it is)from the mother board and cleaned the contacts etc. Now that alarm is gone but now I have this problem. I am sure I created this problem not the motors or limit switches. Jim

[machintek]

Tach wires go from the motor to the axis drive boards.
Encoders go from the motors to the AXSBOB to the BMDC.
The BMDC is the long board that actually controls the machine.
If you are DOS literate, you can search other posts as to how to get to PFM.exe, go to tuner and turn each motor to see if it is counting.
What was the original error message?

George

[md63825]

I also have a 95 EZ-Path and had a similar problem a few years ago. I ended-up replacing the wires in the flexible track. I can't remember how many strands were in the cable but a few of the small (I think) 20 guage wires in that cable were simply falling apart. It never hurts to unplug and re-insert the boards several times also. The contacts get corroded and unplugging them and plugging them back in only once or twice may not clean them good enough. A pencil eraser does a good job also. Just be careful of ESD.

Mike