Side Mount Toolchanger Hang-up

[pdoherty]

Hey Guys, here is a fun one:

I called up a tool this afternoon that we had just loaded into the changer of our VF5/50 on friday.

The pocket pivoted down and the arm engaged the holder, but the arm appeared to not be able to pull the holder out of the pocket and the machine faulted out with the arm still engaged with both the tool in the pocket and the tool in the spindle.

We went through the recovery procedure and were able to release the tool that was in the spindle, move the head up enough to disengage it from the arm and slide it out at an angle, with the arm still in position under the spindle. We were not able to move the tool changer arm using ATC FWD or ATC REV and the arm remains engaged with the tool that is 'stuck' in the pocket.

My theory is that we have committed the unforgivable sin of using the wrong pull stud (I won't bore you with the details of how this happened) and that somehow the tool actually made it into and out of the spindle and into the tool changer pocket, but that the downward force of the tool changer arm is not great enough to release it from the pocket retaining mechanism. I was able to pry the tool down a bit from the pocket and could feel it overcoming the retention balls, but the changer arm did not move down - it just flexed.

Is there a way to step through the individual arm motions for this changer - i.e. rotate arm CW, lower arm, rotate arm CCW, raise arm? It seems like if I could just pry a bit to help it out while it was doing the down motion, we could get that tool out of the pocket. or, for that matter rotate the arm and leave the tool in the pocket, to be removed by some other method than the changer arm.

I promise, I promise, I promise - never again will I let any pull stud go in that machine that has not been inspected and verified!

[Geof]

....Is there a way to step through the individual arm motions for this changer - i.e. rotate arm CW, lower arm, rotate arm CCW, raise arm?....

Short answer....yes. I watched the technician from my dealer do it when he changed the arm from a BT style to a CT style on a new machine. I was not watching closely but he seemed to be following instructions on a screen he got to via the Offsets Page. Read your manual and you might find something.

I think the procedure used the cursor keys and jogged the drive on the arm by a very small amount each key stroke.

[pdoherty]

Thanks Geof. I'll go back to the books and take another look. Probably something fairly simple.

[ltmquik]

You can access the controls for moving the DATC by using the recovery key.

[pdoherty]

Thanks again for the replies.

We got it moved this morning. What I was missing was that when in recovery mode, the ATC REV and ARC FWD keys jog the arm a fraction of a degree each time you press them. So to move the arm clear of the tool in the pocket, we just had to hit ATC REV 50 or 60 times. I was expecting that hitting ATC REV once would bring the arm back to it's origin.

The recovery process that is built into the control really is pretty useful once you figure out it's subtleties.

Finally, it was an incorrect pull stud that caused the problem. It had the correct length and diameters, but NO back chamfer - that's why it stuck in the pocket. Although the tool was in the spindle breifly, it was never spun. I'd say we got lucky.