Tool change problem 1997 Milltronics VM-17.

[plane captain]

My tool changer carousel will not rotate cw or ccw. Could these tool change inputs be locking out the front panel ? What I mean is, the arm in input shows a 1 when the arm is out. The arm out shows a 1 when the arm is in. Is that normal, reverse acting. Should I be able to rotate the carousel at any time before running a program or are there times that it is not available?

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[allen mullis]

You should be able to rotate it pretty much any time, although you will have to home the carousel afterward and empty the spindle before the next tool change. It is possible that the rotate motor prox switch is not reading the flat on the shaft and the carousel is out of position. you can check the function that switch in your input diagnostics output page. If it is not reading made at idle, then you have two contactors side by side in the panel, you can manually make them, though I'm not telling you how in case you fry yourself, and force a rotation which should let you check the prox switch function. Insulated flat screw drivers are great!

[ZZZZ]

Allen is right, your carousel motor is likely out of position. The On Pocket input should be a 1 when the carousel is in the correct position, and yours is a 0.

You can force the motor to run by turning the output for CW rotation with an MDI command sety4 and turn it off with a clry4 command.
You will see the Carousel CW output change to a 1 while it is active, (CCW is Y out 5) and you should see the Y in 3 input change from 0 to 1 to 0 to 1, etc, as it rotates. If it doesn't, you may have a loose setscrew on the cam or a bad or mis-adjusted prox switch.

Since it is unlikely that you will get lucky enough to have it stop when it is On Pocket, turn the power to the machine off and manually rotate the Geneva Coupling Cam so the flat is facing the prox switch.
You want the power off because I have seen the motor take off to the next position on its own when you change the state of the input. That gearmotor wouldn't even slow down as it mangled your fingers if that happened.

Good luck.

[plane captain]

Thanks for the help guys. I was able to get it going and finish the part. This machine was using a single tool in the spindle as the changer was jammed when I got it. So if I understand correct, the on pocket means that it is in a proper position 1-20. Is this correct?

[ZZZZ]

Yes, that is correct.

You can see what the control is seeing and doing by looking at the input/output screens. This information can help you determine what is going on when you have a problem.