Spindle starts once, runs for a while, then shuts down

[iess525]

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[alex gitzel]

The new drive will be more senstive to errors in feedback so the encoder is possible.make sure that the idlers are shifting properly one time i was working on a machine with this error,it took a while to find but the in house maint. guy crossed up the air seal and high range air lines at the valve block. the machine would change ranges fine with an m3 command because the air seal would fire and change it,but with a range change in rigid tap there is no m3 command given so air seal would not fire and move the low range idler back.so if they were machining in high range then tap in low it would not change,the motor would skwak the belts and then give an error#7.so maybe you are having some sort of shifting issue.

[Fadal Error]

The tech did pull the air lines off one by one. I hope he didn't cross them. The thing is, it will tap sometimes and hang up at other times.

[alex gitzel]

The way i found it was that the air seal would come on only in low range and turn off in high,so if yours is only working in one range high or low that would be it.the air seal line usualy but not always has an inline restrictor pluged into the end of the line,it is a small silver insert and will only be seen with the line out.otherwise the lines get a memory of the bends over time see if any look out of place,the air seal valve is the last in the stack towards the rear of the machine and high range is before it ,5/32 air line.another thing to look at are the belts sticky with coolant? they can stick to the pulley when they should be off,causing both ranges to try to run at the same time untill the stuck one blows off,the belts will make some noise when this happens.the solution is to replace the belts and clean the pulleys and guides out,get them looking new. the best cleaner i found is castol super clean,it takes off the old coolant+grease better than anything else i have found.and you may need a pick to get the pulley groves scraped out.the other machine with air seal issue would tap fine as long as you were in the same range as the last tool.

[Fadal Error]

I'm still fighting this one. I have a thousand blind holes that need to be tapped with a very precise depth. I have been doing it by hand.

Anyway, the airlines seem to be fine. The air seal seems to work right. The machine should stay in high range for tapping anyway. That's why you designate G84.2. So it shouldn't need to shift to tap.

I notice some weird things. The spindle will actually spin backwards a little before running forward to set up for rigid tapping. That's on a good try. Most of the time it will stall and give me the same motor overload error as above. Sometimes it will start moving into position, stop and bounce the axes backwards like the tool is bouncing off a wall. The spindle will even run backwards for half a revolution or so.

[alex gitzel]

I have never seen one doing what you are describing.you can pick up an encoder for a few hundred bucks and give it a shot,I always have one on the van to rule things out.if you have the old us digital encoder( has a black metal cover over it) they have been very prone to failure,they are unsealed and let dust etc. get on the disk and cause reading errors.the new ones are sealed units.If you have the old one it will most likely fail sooner or later anyway.the control card may be failing,if you have another shop around with a -4 or newer spindle card you can try to swap it out,but cards rarely fail.another thing to check is the dc power supply (top left,side cabinet.)check the 5,12,and -12vdc power make sure they are within a volt or less,most are set on the high side.then set you meter to ac and check for any ac power rippling in the dc power,should be 0.000vac. ac ripple or low power will mess with the control cards.just thinking i belive you lost all your memory before did you do a zero memory procedure to remove any corrupt files?it should be done if not.verify the ground is good on the macine and that the tech added the second ground wire to the drive ,one on the incoming power side and one on the motor side as shown in the install book.

[Mark Stehr]

Wow. That's great. Thank you so much!

I have never seen one doing what you are describing.you can pick up an encoder for a few hundred bucks and give it a shot,I always have one on the van to rule things out.if you have the old us digital encoder( has a black metal cover over it) they have been very prone to failure,they are unsealed and let dust etc. get on the disk and cause reading errors.the new ones are sealed units.If you have the old one it will most likely fail sooner or later anyway.the control card may be failing,if you have another shop around with a -4 or newer spindle card you can try to swap it out,but cards rarely fail.another thing to check is the dc power supply (top left,side cabinet.)check the 5,12,and -12vdc power make sure they are within a volt or less,most are set on the high side.then set you meter to ac and check for any ac power rippling in the dc power,should be 0.000vac. ac ripple or low power will mess with the control cards.just thinking i belive you lost all your memory before did you do a zero memory procedure to remove any corrupt files?it should be done if not.verify the ground is good on the macine and that the tech added the second ground wire to the drive ,one on the incoming power side and one on the motor side as shown in the install book.