Help with spindle drive alarm

[alphaorange]

Hey all...I have a chncI with siemens control and a fanuc spindle drive. The drive is not outputting power to the spindle motor. The drive repair guy says it is because the encoder is not outputting a signal and the Hardinge guy says BS because the drive doesn't require one to work. He says it is only used for spindle sync functions. The drive repair guys want their money and I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I have to call a hardinge guy in, it's going to cost me several hundred bucks (at least). Anybody know for sure if the encoder has to work? BTW, never had any trouble threading, etc, so I'm not sure how confident I am in the drive repair guy. Most of the time I can't even get the machine off reset to home it, so I'm thinking it isn't the encoder, since the drive isn't getting a signal to do anything at that point. BTW, when I can get it to reset, as soon as I try to start the spindle it will fault after a few seconds and during the time before it faults, no power is coming out of the drive. Drive or encoder? Ideas?

[jdeere4250]

what is the generation of fanuc drive unit ie a06b-6044-xxxx or whatever?

[WGoyer]

This model Hardinge had what Fanuc would refer to as their "analog AC spindle servo". It most definitely has a spindle motor encoder (on the end of the Fanuc motor) and a small Heidenhain spindle encoder, belt driven, geared to the headstock. If the Fanuc unit is alarming out, it should display one of 16 alarm codes in binary on its four alarm lights. The encoder is fairly easy to test with a simple VOM, and is not very expensive or hard to replace.

Best regards,

Warren

www.uptimecorp.com

[jdeere4250]

Now. lets start at the Beginning. At a given spindle cmd. is it just not starting ? Is it giving an alarm ? and which alm? Like Warrens says .One point though Warren I am not real sure what you mean about testing a spindle sensor with a VOM other than test for DC voltage, maybe I could learn something here. These units can be driven with either a digital signal or an analog signal