Alarm 123 Spindle Drive Fault

[Shotout]

Is anyone familiar with this alarm on a TM-1? It was unaccompanied by any other alarm and the machine was just sitting at the time, had been drilling and tapping into 6061 alum earlier, nothing strenuous. I've called the HFO and set up service, but I have a rush job this weekend, working OT and would like to run the LH parts on one and RH on the other. Is there anything I can check until the srv people get here next week? Details: reset cleared conditions with a loud click, I removed tool holders from machine, no orientation problems etc. After a couple of minutes of watching it I heard a loud click and it alarmed again so I shut it down and killed the main.

Thanks

[WITOMCIO]

Check if fan on top of motor is working.If it doesn't you may get that alarm.

[Gomes]

I had the same fault on my SL-20 and they had to replace the vector drive (main drive motor). Does the alarm keep occuring if you reset the machine?

[Shotout]

Originally Posted by WITOMCIO Check if fan on top of motor is working.If it doesn't you may get that alarm.

It's running when the spindle is on, I guess it was yesterday too, didn't think to check it. When I ran the spindle warm up program on it this moringing it was on and I now have a ladder beside it and am checking it periodicly.

[Shotout]

Originally Posted by Gomes I had the same fault on my SL-20 and they had to replace the vector drive (main drive motor). Does the alarm keep occuring if you reset the machine?

It was faulting in approx 30 sec after a reset, after three faults I shut it down. After reading a response in the carousal (sp) thread about switching off and restarting I tried that. Mainly I really need both machines through the weekend so I had to try it this morning and just hoped the gremilins got bored over night and left. I ran the spindle warm up program a couple of times this morning too see if it would alarm out and since it didn't I set up the machine and pestered the frt dispatcher looking for my metal while I ran some shafts and some other parts. So far I've drilled and cbored 4 holes in 1.5in CRS for 5/8 SHCS and am now roughing in a faced portion of the job (z-1.0) at .19 doc with a 5/8 em at 70% spindle load, anything faster vibrates the machine like a dog trying to $*** a peach seed. So far so good, still want the tech to check it through though of course. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me, mine are cramping.

Scott

[dtanner797]

mine does the same thing. sevice guy said vector drive is going bad

[Shotout]

Originally Posted by dtanner797 mine does the same thing. sevice guy said vector drive is going bad

OK thanks. That paticular machine is my problem child and it is the newer of our two machines. The other TM-1 is pretty reliable, rarely ever a glitch. Any warnings about what I might expect until it is repaired? I plan to push hard through Mon mid morning early afternoon.

Thanks,
Scott

[Geof]

Originally Posted by Shotout Is anyone familiar with this alarm on a TM-1? It was unaccompanied by any other alarm and the machine was just sitting at the time, had been drilling and tapping into 6061 alum earlier, nothing strenuous. ....Thanks

Tapping is strenuous because you are starting then reversing the spindle very frequently. The actual thread cutting in nothing but the spindle drive is running up to 195% load every few seconds.

Cross your fingers....you may have just overheated the regen resistor or overheated the drive itself. They have temperature sensors and will give that alarm on overheat. Also I think the temperature sensor has a timeout so the machine may be stopped before it reaches the time limit.

I have had similar alarms on lathes doing short fast jobs. One solution was to put a little fan blowing on the regen resistor.

[Shotout]

Originally Posted by Geof Tapping is strenuous because you are starting then reversing the spindle very frequently. The actual thread cutting in nothing but the spindle drive is running up to 195% load every few seconds. Cross your fingers....you may have just overheated the regen resistor or overheated the drive itself. They have temperature sensors and will give that alarm on overheat. Also I think the temperature sensor has a timeout so the machine may be stopped before it reaches the time limit. I have had similar alarms on lathes doing short fast jobs. One solution was to put a little fan blowing on the regen resistor.

I saw the open regen in the alarm desc but didn't know what it was. I have the main VF manual and the TM addendum but no other reference material to look for these things. It was kind of hot in the shop yesterday and the A/C needs servicing, call it maybe 90-95F so maybe it was a heat problem. So far I've been continuously cutting since call it 2:45 3:00 today and so far so good. Also the shop is cooler today, had some cloud cover so it didn't bake the roof which is too low anyway IMO. I am noticing this machine isn't keeping up with the older one. I am running mirror image programs, identical tool holders with identical tools with same length of cutter from the end of the holder, same set up, stock from the same stick and the problem child isn't cutting as well. I've noticed before but this is the first time I've been able to duplicate everything to check it and see if I was imagining it or not. I'd have to say not as the older machine is running about 45minutes ahead of the other right now and the programs where started 5 minutes apart. I just hope it keeps on until the job is done.

Thanks
Scott

[Shotout]

Originally Posted by Geof Cross your fingers....you may have just overheated the regen resistor or overheated the drive itself. They have temperature sensors and will give that alarm on overheat. Also I think the temperature sensor has a timeout so the machine may be stopped before it reaches the time limit.

Once again you were correct. I ran the machine HARD 8hrs Fri and 18hrs yesterday with a couple of fans blowing to move the hot air away from the machine. It is doing the easy part of the job now while my good child finishes out the harder stuff now that all initial ops have been completed. Never so much as a hiccup outside of the Y-axis jump that has now reoccured, annoying to have a program work one day then overtravel the next. The tech can check that too as he will be here.

WITOMCIO
Check if fan on top of motor is working.If it doesn't you may get that alarm.

I'm going to ask about having that fan changed out. It doesn't seem to be moving the same volume of air as the other machine's does and they where running mirror image programs.

I appreciate the help from everyone.

Thanks
Scott

[Geof]

Originally Posted by Shotout ....Never so much as a hiccup outside of the Y-axis jump that has now reoccured, annoying to have a program work one day then overtravel the next.....Scott

You had posted about this I think. I might have mentioned my solution for fixing sticking microswitches....bash em with a plastic hammer like I did for an old MiniMill.

On Thursday this week this same Mini, something like 3000 spindle hours so it is not young, homed 1 revolution negative on the X axis. Of course it then proceeded to break tools off on the edge of a clamp immediately beside the hole it was supposed to spot, drill and tap. We had a new parts loader on the machine so he was worried he had done something wrong so my guy who does setups went to look at things. He jogged the X axis full negative like we always do...spin the jogwheel very fast. That gave him a X axis servo overload alarm; he didn't know it had homed wrong and was going 0.200 further negative than it should have so he ran it full speed into the hard stop. So now the shop supervisor came over and they did the first thing before calling Geof; power off and back on and auto restart. Which gave them a servo overload and a loud humming sound.

So they came to get me looking terribly worried. I crossed fingers, turned power off and back on, then went into Settings and turned on Jog Without Zero Return and slowly jogged the X axis positive while watching the servo load. It only went to 150% or so before it broke free. Then we homed the machine, checked Work Offsets and it ran fine the rest of the day and Friday. We will take the covers off next week and clean the switch, I think it just hung up.

Incidentally if you ever run Haas machines into a hard stop like this don't panic, at least not immediately. The hard stop is actually a big sleeve of what looks like nylon on the end of the ballscrew. That is what I have seen on all the machines I have taken the covers off. I think the sleeve turns with the screw so when the nut overtravels and hits the plastic the ballscrew is stopped and the servo overload not because the screw thread has jammed bit because the friction of the nut against the plastic is directly braking the screw. This means the servo overloads slowly, by this I mean slowly in terms of tens of milliseconds rather than a millisecond or two.

[Shotout]

[QUOTE=Geof;301926]You had posted about this I think. I might have mentioned my solution for fixing sticking microswitches....bash em with a plastic hammer like I did for an old MiniMill. [QUOTE]

You did. I Turned and milled a drop of delrin and turned an alum handle and did as you had suggested. I had also degreased with some citrus cleaner after moving the sump and placing a catch basin under it. Nothing helped. The Haas tech that was replacing a backup battery warned me it would need replacing before overly long. When it goes out I guess the people with the pocketbook will OK it.

[QUOTE]
On Thursday this week this same Mini, something like 3000 spindle hours so it is not young, homed 1 revolution negative on the X axis....So they came to get me looking terribly worried. I crossed fingers, turned power off and back on, then went into Settings and turned on Jog Without Zero Return and slowly jogged the X axis positive while watching the servo load. It only went to 150% or so before it broke free. Then we homed the machine, checked Work Offsets and it ran fine the rest of the day and Friday. We will take the covers off next week and clean the switch, I think it just hung up.
[QUOTE]

I had the limit switches stick my first week here and it alarmed, of course on the problem child. The foreman (not a machinist) was hot with me, asked me how I done it told him it wasn't me. He had me recite the power up proceedure which he looked up in the book, like I was going to miss a step or something. He always acted like CNC was an arcane art rather just a different way to make chips, all be it fast and consistantly. When I first figured out the problem was when I was restarting a program the next morning, ruined a 2.5X2.5X48.5 piece of S-7 so I now check the G54 and at least a couple of tools every morning. I guess it was lazyness on my part but my instructor had taught us that aas long as the battery in the controller had power that everything was stored as the value stored is a physical machine coordinate and that point is suppose to be picked up when the machine homes withing the tolerance of the machine itself which is .0002 repeatablity. Luckily the owner was understanding as he hired through the school and knew there would be a breaking in period.

I was luckily able to free it as you said after Haas called back and walked me through it. I'm glad to know about the reason for the plastic sleeves. I had assumed it was just a wear point to prevent metal to metal contact on the screw cover and I thought it might be a chip wiper for the leadscrew. Haas didn't meantion this fact when I asked about checking for damage. It does alarm out every few months or so, for some reason they keep substituting cheap coolant from MSC and that stuff is gummy when it dries even though MSC says it is 100% compatable with what we normally use. I just knew it was tearing something up, or at least causing enough damage to possibly effect fine tolerance work in the future, which I do on the good child when ever I can.

The load history shows the machine has most likely been crashed more than a few times. Everything read 200% on the tool load page before the tech cleared it when he showed me how to set the autofeed etc. Not from me btw, my biggest problem is I am afraid to take deep cut at higher feeds, although after this weekend I just don't see myself being quite as conservative in the future. Probably make my tooling last longer too.

Thanks for taking the time to reply

Scott