Fadal Spindle Inverter Troubles

[bart10]

We have a 1996 Fadal 4020 with an Advanced Motion Controls spindle inverter model inv-0056 (aka vector servo amplifier) 10k rpm spindle and Baldor 10hp spindle motor. Last week after running a production job with alot of tapped holes the spindle instead of stopping when commanded would coast and the load meter would peg at max a few times and make a jarring sound a few times as it was seamingly trying to stop the spindle in an alternate way.

After contacting the good people at kmac we checked the regen resitors located on top of the back cabnet Ater testing wide open with a meter we replace the resistors and the 600vdc slow blow fuse and the 3 amp buss fuse on the bottom of the AMC inverter.

Gave it another try and the regen resitors got red hot instatly and started smoking after only 1 spindle stop from 2600 rpm. The diagnoses: bad inverter and very pricey to replace.

Called AMC tech support and they could give no info on what components might go bad because of an agreement with Fadal. Called Fadal and they can't give info because they just swap out the inverters and don't service them so they don't know. Called numerous vector drive repair companies and most want big $ to look at it. We are in the Detroit area and $ is very tight these days.

After doing some more research (about 3 days worth) we found out that the IGBT transistors are usually a suspect with this type of problem. They are located on the top of the AMC board on the back side. There are 3 and one tested bad with a multi meter. We will be replacing all 3 the parts are around $25.00 each. Our IGBT transistors are model # IXGK50n60au1

I hope this helps anyone who has a similar problem also if you know anything about these drives and know of any other related componets that may cause IGBT's to fail please let us know. We will be recieving our parts this week and a couple of new regen resistors and I will post a follow up when we try it.

[scadvice]

...and please let us know how things work out. Sorry I have nothing to add for you, but I'm always interested in this type of information.
Steve.

[Donkey Hotey]

Good onya' for finding it and tracing it down to the IGBTs. I've got a Haas but went through a similar diagnosis path. I had to learn way too much about how vector drives work. From your description, it sounded like a bad IGBT but then I saw that you solved it. Good job!

[Larry Callahan]

I know it's an old thread but, we had a a Vector, AMC INV-0056 go bad. It may be the same problem.

We can't spare the down time so we bought a new Baldor unit for 2.9k

Does anyone know if there is any value in the old unit we removed? Can I sell or or toss it or recycle it?

[bart10]

Larry,
I started this thread a few years back and never posted the outcome. We wound up replacing the igbt transistors ($2.00 each 3 required), the regen resistors (around$100each 2 required) and the 600volt fuse for a total cost of about $650.00 including the labor for the technician to put the parts in. I would recommend putting it on ebay and I would think it would sell pretty quickly to a re builder for $600-900 as is.

[D3Spindles]

I would first try and sell it to a machine rebuilder.... if at worst case... then scrap it.

D3Spindles