4020 4th axis problems

[little bubba]

I'm hoping one of you guys can help me out. We just threw the 4th axis back on the machine and as usual we're running into a bunch of problems. What I've done so far, pulled the dummy plug, hooked up the 4th axis. Changed the parameters to XYZA, then powered down and up. At this point it was just giving an A axis fault, sometimes, error #1, sometimes error #18, zeroed the memory as this worked last time. Checked all of the fuses and breakers, fine, lights are on on all of the boards. Diagnostics says all the boards are fine, yet still the 4th axis wouldn't work or even move. Then it started throwing axis faults on the X Y and Z. This was friday so we said screw it, went out and got drunk.

Fast forward to this morning. Fired it up. skipped the CS and went to jog, the X Y and Z are running fine, flip over to A and get an axis fault. So I decided to try cold starting it and the X Y and Z did their little dance and the A did a full 360. Then It gave me a Z axis and A axis fault. Hit jog, and the A moved a little and the screen went blank. Shut it down and power it back up and hit jog and the A moves about 5 degrees and throws me "A axis fauly error #1 motor overload, reset emergency stop condition". Thats all its doing now. I'm getting annoyed with this thing and hopefully someone has run across this before.

The 4th axis a vh65, and as far as I can tell the machine isn't set up to use the break, and the line isn't hooked up anyway. When the A is moving it doesn't sound like its working against anything, so I'm at a loss.

[little bubba]

I finally got it, I knew as soon as I asked for help it would work. What I did and I have no idea why it worked or even what posessed me to do it, I set whatever parameter from xyza to just A rebooted and the A worked, then I switched back to XYZA and now all is well.

Anybody else ever have a similar problem and what causes it. Everytime we put the 4th back on, its a battle, though this one took longer than usual.

[nervis1]

I change the parameters in setp, do not exit to save and reinitalize, power down, attach the a axis, and restart (completely power down and back up). Run through CS.

Is that what you did?

I also know that that plug has to be seated all the way in, push it in, tighten the ring, push it in again, tighten the ring, untill it's fully seated.

[little bubba]

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.