Need Help!- R2E4 Boss 9 X Axis locked up

[ironworksdesign]

I have a, new to me, Series 1 R2E4 Boss 9 machine that was dropped when delivered. The X-axis encoder military connector was broken and I bought a new connector and soldered into the encoder. Upon powering up, it passed all of the hardware tests and went into homing. The x axis moved in short bursts and disabled the axis drive. It could be turned back on and would do the same thing. It ended up at the stops and seems to have come up hard into the end of travel. Now I can't jog it off of the end stops. Is there a way to manually back this off? Is the short duration travel indicative of a bad encoder?

Paul

[machintek]

Maybe a bad encoder, maybe a bent motor shaft, bent encoder shaft, or a bent balls screw.
there is a nut at the right side of the table that holds the ballscrew to the table. loosen this a couple of turns and the BALL NUT will be freed up. Note that on this machine the ball screw does not turn but the ball nut does.
There is a cover above the X motor that covers the ball nut. Remove the screws, pull the ball screw cover back and hold it coiled up with some wire ties.
Turn the ball nut to center the table feeling how it turns. May tell you a lot. Tighten that nut you loosened too. Better yet take the nut off and see how the table slides. Then put it back on.

George

[cncsnw]

If when you say the X axis "moved in short bursts" you mean that it was jumping abruptly, at a higher speed than the normal homing rate, then you may have the power polarity backwards. This causes the motor to move opposite the direction the control intends, and will generally cause a brief runaway before triggering a fault.

With the motor power leads disconnected from the servo drive amplifier, you can jumper them to a convenient low-voltage DC supply (e.g. a car battery) to run the motor one direction or the other at low speed. This could be useful for backing it off the stops, and also for finding out whether the axis can move freely and smoothly.

[ironworksdesign]

Fellows, thank you for your quick replies! These pieces of information were exactly what I was looking for. I am on a rotary converter so I traced my wild leg back and put it onto the leg that doesn't supply power to the transformers. Then I tried swapping the other two leads to see if it made a difference. I have to get it out of its locked up mode first.

George, the piece about the nut turning was the first revelation that made things clear to me. Being new to this machine I obviously haven't studied the manual well enough yet. I'll give your suggestions a go and see what benefit I can get from this info.

[ironworksdesign]

The loosening of the nut was all that it took to get the table moving. The x is still traveling in short bursts, the y seems to work correctly and the z moves a short distance and quits like the x.

I put a meter on the 3 phase coming into the machine and I find that I have a leg that is low on power. (190v) I'm tracking that back but I'm afraid that my 3 phase converter may be the culprit. Do you guys have any suggestions for the ultimate converter for these? What do you think of a Variac? I'd like to have a central unit for the shop because I seem to have acquired quite a few 3 phase pieces of equipment lately.

[machintek]

Static or rotary phase converter?

George

[ironworksdesign]

I'm partial to rotary converters over static but I'm looking hard at a VFD for reasons of energy efficiency and the possibilities of remote starting and digital control.