Hawk 5M 'error positioning to marker on axis X '

[HurcoUser]

Hi
Machine - Hurco Hawk 5M
During the calibration 'shuffle' which seems to be in the order Z axis, X axis then Y, occasionally the Z axis would not calibrate with the resultant 'error positioning to marker on axis Z'. This would happen maybe 1 in 10 calibrations but when calibration was achieved all would be well.
Now what has happened is that a similar error message 'error positioning to marker on axis X' is happening on axis X but all the time. All axis can be moved using the jog controls, the encoder readouts look good and I can see the marker 'dot' for each axis except for the X axis. I swapped the servo cards around without adjusting anything and the X axis card would not calibrate in any other axis position although it looked like it was trying to. i.e the table would move to the limit switch and move forward to (not) find the marker and then throw up the error message. I read the previous thread 'lost Y axis marker' but I think it was for a different machine as although there is a bal pot the wiring must be different.

Any help on this would be appreciated

[bloke]

Does yours have orange connectors with the servo chassis at the top of the cabinet?

[HurcoUser]

Yes

[bloke]

Power up the servos, put a meter on DC volts in the two pins nearest to you on the top orange connector on the X axis amp. Adjust the BAL pot to make the reading 0.00V or as near as you can get it.

[HurcoUser]

Hi
Here are the results of the X axis Bal pot tweaking.
The values before starting (on all three axis).
Z -30mV
Y -20mV
X +5 mV

I set the X to 0mV but still the error message occurred, I then set the Z to 0mV and then got the same error but on the Z axis. In a moment of madness (inspiration) I set them all to -20mV ( I think my logic was the Y axis always calibrated OK but if you remember the Z sometimes did not). Bingo, all axis calibrated fine, tried 20 calibrations in succession with no calibration failures. Then checked my meter on the other Hawk 5M here and the readings were around 0 mV, so meter is OK. Weird but works (for this machine) I think I'll need a schematic to work this one out.
It is now cutting metal again.
Thats another one we owe Bloke, Christmas is coming.
Cheers
George