Rotary communication problem

[jlwright]

I have a 2008 Haas VF-2SS and an older Haas rotary table. My particular machine does not have an RS232 interface. It does have 4 extra M codes I can use to trigger the rotary table to make it index. I have it wired into the Rotary control box and When I MDI an M21 it closes the contacts and makes the Rotary table index just like it should. Everything up to this point works great. The problem is the VF2 just sits there and won't go past the M21 like it's waiting for something to tell it to open the contacts. You can open the contacts by pushing the reset button but that just stops the program and your back to square one. Is the Rotary control box supposed to send a signal back to the M-21 contactor to open the contacts and let the machine continue. The M-21 contact has a normally open and a normally closed connection with a common in between. It seems like there should be another M-Code to cancel the M21. Even better would be for the M-21 to just be a momentary contact. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[wms]

The small DIN plug on the side of the machine control cabinet has 4 pins..Pin #1 and Pin #2 are the pins for "Cycle Finish". Which tell the control that the rotary is finish and to go ahead with the program..

But it doesn't send the "Cycle Finish" signal to the M21 contactor..I believe it goes back to the mocron board..

There should be a rotary manual on the Haas web site to help you sort it out..

[Ydna]

hmmm when you use that code I think the machine is indeed waiting for a signal. That's how we automate the machine with a robot, by stating M22 to activate the relay, robot then closes and opens the Haas P22 relay and the program pointer continues on.

Try using M51 to close the relay instead. M61 is supposed to open it, assuming the program pointer can get to the next line. But the use of M51/M61 might be a control option (I'm not sure).

[jlwright]

Your right about the M51 and M61. I found it on another post last night. It works fine that way. I am still having issues. It ignores the M51 about a third of the time. The part I am making has 18 indexes. I think the problem now may be the cable. I used an ethernet cable and it isn't shielded. The Haas book recommends only using shielded cable because of electrical interference.
Thanks so much for getting back to me.

[Ydna]

ah that might be it. I have but one small suggestion, perhaps you can add a very short wait statement between turning the signal on and off. (that is, if you aren't using a wait already). It's possible the quick rise/fall times are fooling the circuit.

[Geof]

..... Even better would be for the M-21 to just be a momentary contact. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

I think you can do this with an extra relay.

The M21 code closes a pair of relay contacts and sits waiting for the Cycle Finsh circuit closure to show up on pins 1 and 2 as wms mentions.

What you need is a little relay that is wired in parallel with the rotary with the contacts on the relay wired to pin 1 and pin 2.

Now the M21 provides its own Cycle Finish signal.

The total operating sequence is:

M21 tells rotary to index and closes pin 1 / pin 2 contacts on second relay.

The Cycle Finish signal from the pin 1 and 2 cancels the M21 so the second relay opens cancelling the Cycle Finish signal so the machine continues.

However, now I have typed this I realise that this does effectively provide a momentary contact but it may restart the machine before the rotary has finished the indexing move. Ideally you want the Cycle Finish signal to occur at the end of the indexing move. Maybe the rotary controller has some contacts to do this?

You could simply program a delay following the M21 command and make it long enough that you are sure the rotary has finished indexing.

[KenFoulks]

I wanted to point an issue with the dwell. Rapid override can cause the rotary to take longer to get into position.

Here is a document for the M-FININ board. I think that if you rewire your application to match the attached diagram, it will work correctly.

The rotary control box has to be on & homed out. There has to be a program in the box to run.

[KenFoulks]

I found another document that may help.

[jlwright]

I did get me machine to work adding a 1 second wait after the M61.
The information on the M fin I was missing was where the input points were at. My book is very vague on this. Thanks to the diagram you posted I can find it to make it work that way too.
Thanks to everyone!