VF3 spindle high gear fault alarm #117 help!

[JHR1]

Can anybody shed any light on this problem for me? Any help for a quick / economical fix would be greatly appreciated!

[gar]

070110-2027 EST USA

Fault #117 is discussed in the HAAS manual. Have you looked at the comments? If you do not have a manual, then go to the HAAS web site and down load it.

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[Geof]

The alarms are not in the manual files on the Haas website they are in a separate document, not easy to find if you are not used to their website. Here is the 117 alarm description:

117 SPINDLE HIGH GEAR FAULT - Gearbox did not shift into high gear. During a change to high gear, the spindle is rotated slowly while air pressure is used to move the gears but the high gear sensor was not detected in time. Parameters 67, 70 and 75 can adjust the time-out times. Check the air pressure, the solenoids circuit breaker CB4, and the spindle drive.

[GaryCorlew]

This has happened to me before on a VF4 there are two solenoids on the VF4's that change the gears, if I remember correctly they are on the back of the column up near the top, also sometimes if it does not stop correctly it will kind of hang between gears. What I have done in the past is do a power up restart and it should go back into low gear. If this happened while tapping and the soleniod is bad simply use the M41(low gear over ride) until you get a new one.

[WITOMCIO]

There is little trick you can do.When you go to the back of the machine there is an Air regulator for air line coming in.After the regulator there are two plastick tubes.Buy some very light sawing machine oil(hardware store) , the lighest you can get and put two drops of it into the thicker line.Your piston for gear changer got stuck.After few times it should move.I had the same thing.I was running machine at hight gear for a week and then had the same problem.Run your machine at low rpm just to shift gears daily and you will be OK.

[fast89]

This is an old post but i have had some recent experience and thought i would share. We had the same problem on our vmc. Just wouldn't go into high gear. The owner had this problem before and repaired it. This time we went into more troubleshooting. We applied full shop air to the shift cylinder (located in the head on the side of the transmission) and it shifted into high and low with no problem. The air that is supplied to the shift cylinder goes thru a .010 hole on the manifold block the shift solenoids are mounted to. We drilled it out to .020 thinking it might help, no luck. Next we thought it might not be exhasuting one side of the cylinder when it trys to shift into high, making the cylinder fight itself. We changed the high gear solenoid valve, no luck. At this point we knew it was the same problem as last time. The gears in the transmission were burred up and not allowing the teeth to slide together. Aparently these transmissions are not "field servicable" according to Haas and you have to send it in for a rebuild and the last time it was quoted i believe around $7000. The owner fixed it the last time, and i fixed this time. The transmissions are very simple. I spent two hours with a dremel tool deburring and knife edging the high gears teeth and had to replace one bearing. It was a common bearing that a place down the street carried. after cleaning and reassembly, it shifted like butter. Hope this helps somebody.

[WITOMCIO]

Good post fast89

[DEAN]

How about the actual gears that are in there; Are they full custom design? Do you suppose they could be bought somewhere other than HAAS?

[dcoupar]

You might want to check the relays on the I/O board. I believe they're K13 & K14. I don't remember if they're the replaceable type though. I've cleaned many a set of contacts to keep running while waiting for parts, but mostly on the tool carousel relays. Another thought to get you going; if you are stuck in low gear and you can run the program in low gear, I seem to remeber you can disable the gearbox with Param 57 "Disable G.B." This should ignore the mandatory gear-shift during power-up.

[fast89]

The gears were most likely custom Haas stuff but no gears needed to be replaced, just massaged. We had the gears grind twice before we took it apart, made an awful noise. That pretty much ensured they were burred and would not mesh together.

[fast89]

Well it looks like I spoke too soon or didn't knock on wood. The damn thing ground the high gear again today. It continued to work after that (knock on wood). I'd like to know why this machine will start the spindle when it is not engaged in any gear? There are double acting limit switches on the high and low position of the air shift solenoid, and yes i tested the shiznit out of them. They are four wire normally open/closed switches. Meaning that when the plunger is in, two wires have continuity, when the plunger is out, the other two wires have continuity. It would seem that there would be two switches telling the computer that it is not in gear.....so why does the spindle start? grrrrrr.

[serviceman]

definitely drill out the restrictors between the copper lines and the black manifold base check the solenoids if they are norgren the coils usually fail and you can replace them cheaply from a norgren distributor. if they are mac they may be clogged or need to be replaced replace the oil in the gearbox. check the wires going to the coils there is no strain relief and sometimes they pull out. ahh the limit switches usually do not fail but it is always worth a look in diagnostics to see if it is in gear and they actually work
good luck