Problem- fadal dual arm changer stops in the middle of a change

[shoreline]

I have a 2004 4525 with a Siemans control and a dual arm tool changer. The arm has been randomly stopping with the arm down and turned about 45 degrees. I get a "tool changer out of position" warning and am unable to jog the machine at that point. We have been manually resetting the arm and carousel which will sometimes work for awhile or not at all.

Has anyone seen this problem before or have any ideas about what may be wrong?

[alex gitzel]

I have not worked on the seimens control fadal(there is only one in our area)but the common issues with the fadal legacy and fanuc machines when they act like this are that the breaker pops if it is set too low or the tools are too heavy,a mechanical bind on the atc,or most common is that one of the interlock sensors or the control board are going bad.on the fadal legacy datc board there are leds on the top of the board that indicate the sensor status you may be able to find something if you run a tool change program and go and watch the leds and see if something is not working right.

[mkd]

we are experiencing random arm stoppages also.
isn't there a recovery function built into the control???
is it really necessary to crank manually every tiem???

[Neal]

MKD--
Here is an excerpt from the Seimens Operators manual to manually mone the DATC arm and bucket. Its akward but it works:
NOTE
Machine must be in JOG mode. Multiple key combinations are required to move the dual tool arm
changer.
• Press and hold the SPINDLE STOP (d), FEED STOP (e), and CYCLE STOP (f) red
hard keys and the RAPID OVR (a) --located between the MPG and the TOOL IN/
OUT hard keys.
The bucket will motion either up or down depending on its previous position.
• Press and hold the SPINDLE STOP (d), FEED STOP (e), and CYCLE STOP (f) red
hard keys and the CONV (b) --located to the left of the TURRET CCW hard key.
The arm will motion forward--depending on its previous position.
• Press and hold the SPINDLE STOP (d), FEED STOP (e), and CYCLE STOP (f) red
hard keys and the blank key (c)--located to the left of the red SPINDLE STOP hard
key.
The arm will motion backwards--depending on its previous position.
NOTE
The arm will only move if the Z-axis is at its home position.

Neal

[mkd]

i wish we had that siemens control!!

with the MP control the only option seems to be to climb on top of the machine and crank the motor until the home position LED lights up in the control cabinet (located on the door hinge side).

[alex gitzel]

There is a page on the fadal control for recovery of the atc,go to the command screen and type DI,enter then DD this will bring it up it has bucket and arm control also a sensor status screen.you can tap #3+4 to move the arm rev.+fwd. you need to be at z+3.25 on some versions of software.the recovery page is not on some of the really old software but most machines have had it updated by now.Be aware the safety interlocks are diabled when in di,dd so be carefull.