161 Error

[motorway]

We have a 94 VF-0 with brushed servos, there is currently an "x-axis over current or drive fault" alarm
We put in a new servo driver card along with a new wiring harness to the motor.
Same alarm..
I switched the X and Y wire harness plugs on the side of the machine.
Same alarm..
If it was a motor problem the error should have went the Y axis, right?
I checked the voltage on the servo boards, they are all getting 167V

I dont know what to check next?

[pants]

is it happening on rapid moves only?
If so check servo regen resistance (plug is on servo distribution card). Also check the servo distribution board is routing the voltage to the regen when braking.

[pants]

i think the regen should be 25ohms

[motorway]

The machine always turns on with this alarm, along with "102 all servos off" alarm, which i guess automatically comes on with any axis alarm.

Any ideas?

[Haas__man]

motorway,
Just wondering, where did you get the new drive card from? Are you certain that its a good part?
Here's what I would do next.
Put all cables back where they were - x-x y-y etc
now disable the x axis
to do this turn off setting 7 (par lock)
press emergency stop
press parameter button once
press the number 1
then cursor down
now you should see parameter number one on tthe CRT which consists of two columns of discriptions and numbers
about three down on the left side should be one called 'disabled'
it will have a zero next to it.
use the cursor to the right key to move the cursor down the list to 'disabled'
type a 1 then write/enter
if you go to the osition screen you should now see that the x-axis has gone.
Now you can make sure that the y axis and z axis still work ok.

Have you checked the x motor to make sure it is good?
if you havn't I can tell you how - you will need a multimeter.

If you have checked the x motor and its good, then you could now plug the x motor into the y axis drive on outside of cabinet and see if y axis drive can run x motor. If possible you should put x axis to centre of travel before doing this so you don't bump it into the end of the axis when you try it.

Let me know what you find and i'll see if i can help

[HuFlungDung]

From my own experience, but on a 96 Haas with brushless drives, there is a small power supply that feeds into the servo amplifiers which are all daisy chained together. I noticed that this fed first in the A amp, then Z then X and Y. Sometimes I'd get an alarm that the Z axis was overheat, unless I was using the rotary, then the alarm would tell me the A axis was overheat. A simple reset fixed this for exactly as long as until such a time as it wouldn't fix it any longer, then I had to go back there and look

So that small power supply did finally calve permanently but its failure was the cause of the alarms which really had nothing to do with overheating of anything. It should be fairly easy to probe it to see if its got any voltage output, if your machine is similar.

[motorway]

I disabled the X axis like you said, Y and Z worked fine.
I have not checked the motor, but i did swap the X and Y cables on the side of the cabinet. I could control the X motor with the Y drive.
So that eliminates the motor?

There is a power supply on the servo distribution board, which is the next board up the line from the driver boards.

[Haas__man]

Motorway
You are correct, it seems to me that if you can control the x motor with the y card then the motor is good. You never said where you got the new drive card from or if you know that it is good? If it is one that you have bought or already had, then it could be the wrong type. There are a few different types of these drive cards and you can't mix them up. You should find a 'rev' version printed on the card. It is probably a D or a F. Either is fine as long as you have all the same on X Y Z A. Also the A axis card is different to X Y Z and cannot be interchanged.

You could now swap the x and y drive cards over. (re-enable x axis first and put all cabling back as it was)
You might find that the new one is faulty? I.E after swapping x and y cards the fault would swap to y.

The power supply that HuFlungDung mentions is only on the brushless versions and is not on your machine.

Let me know what you find

[motorway]

Sorry about the delay. The board came from our haas dealer, the X, Y, and Z boards are all Rev. B
I swapped the X and Y cards, still have "X axis over current or drive fault"
I dont know what to check next

Thanks for all the help

[Geof]

Have you checked the brushes and cleaned all the carbon dust out around the commutator; brushed motors can sometimes have leakage current shorting through the dust worn off the brushes.

[motorway]

Have you checked the brushes and cleaned all the carbon dust out around the commutator; brushed motors can sometimes have leakage current shorting through the dust worn off the brushes.

The X motor has been cleaned and has new brushes

[Haas__man]

OK,
So we swapped the motors and the fault stayed on x axis, because we swapped them on the outside of cabinet we have also checked out the motor cables.
we swapped the drive cards and the fault stayed on x axis.
so motor is not faulty, drive card not faulty, cable not faulty.

There are onlt two pcbs left that can be causing your problem- the servo distribution board which is located just to the right of the drive cards
or the motif pcb which is one of the boards in the processor stack at top left of cabinet.

we'll check the motif pcb first
Power machine off
remove the cover at top left of cabinet
top board should be motif pcb but not 100% certain - boards were swapped around at this age of machine.
Motif pcb should have lots of plugs all around the board and should be labelled up X Y Z and A at left side and right side.
Processor has a battery at top right and a couple of ribbon cables
video pcb doesn't have many plugs at all - maybe 4-6 plugs in total.
You should not disconect the processor from the machine. doing this could erase all information on processor board - this would be bad. If the motif pcb is the top board then we can proceed with checking. If motif is not top pcb, then you should leave it.
If motif is top board :
Locate X and Y plugs at left side of PCB and swap them over
Locate X and Y plugs at right side of PCB and swap them over.
Reconnect ground cables to cover mount (the green wires you disconnected when removing cover)

Turn on machine.
Now x and y axes have been swapped over
when you command x to move, the y should move
when you command y to move, the x should move
if you still get x axis alarm then the motif pcb is faulty
if you get y axis fault now then it is very likely that servo dist pcb is faulty.

Let me know what happens.