I have 3 Fadals, one 1995 6030 with 32 MP control, 1 year 2001 4020 Remanufactured machine with 32 MP control and a 2003 4020 with 88hs control.
Both the 4020 machines have had runaway problems, typically when doing
a helical interpolation, but also when doing pockets and even when just plain
spot drilling. Machine will be cutting away and then WAM! it takes off sideways. It does not happen real often, and seems to happen more often
when it is real hot out.
An associate of ours is also having the same problems, but more often.
Fadal is currently loading older software on their machines to see if it eliminates the issue. They are at the same time telling me it is my software.
This of coarse does not make sense because it NEVER has happened with
my older 6030 machine (which has an older version of the software by the way.)
I have had others (inside the industry) tell me that this is not altogether
uncommon with Fadals. Of coarse the dealer says it never happens to anyone
but us and our associates that are having the exact same problem.
We haven't had that particular problem, YET. But we were expieriencing huge numbers of random errors. After finding full AC in the DC lines we replaced the low voltage power supply (nothing more than a basic PC piece of crap, we bought one for $30 and chopped the wires instead of giving fadal the extra $250 to chop the wires). The problems didn't stop until we spent so much time opening and closing the cabinet, that we just left it open, then the problems stopped. On our machine a '97 4020 there are at least 5 cooling fans in the cabinet, but no way for the hot air to get out, and during the summer it got REALLY hot in there, it was moving hot air, but HOT none the less.
I'm not sure if this will help, but it can't hurt. We have an old Wells Index with a bandit control and the machine would run off, always at the worst possible time of course, so the heat thing came into play again. When we finally got fed up with the machine not working right past noon, we called Rick Robeson at Wells and when we explained the heat thing, he knew exactly what component on what board it was. I really think it would be sad when a small company like that can tell you whats wrong and Fadal can't.
Dudes, I thought I had problems with our Fadals...
I have seen heat related malfunctions too though, I wonder if you could safely add some kind of cabinette cooler say from Exair (do a web search). It would have to be dry air though. I have put one of their devices on an old Cincinnati dinosaur CNC that seemed to help.
Dosen't surprise me at all that Fadal is not very good at problem solving, in fact I am surprised to hear when they do solve one...
We have a 8030 (1999), two 6030s (One '98 and one '96), and a 4020 (1985), all with 88hs controls. None have ever had run away problems in the last six years since I have been working on them. We keep our shop at 70 degrees year round. Sometimes the guys have a pissing contest with the air on each end of the shop and it will drop 5° to 10 ° cooler in the summer, but we hold ± .0002 in our grinding area, so we need to keep the tempurature controled. It sounds like heat may be your issue.
I have seen the control send the table in some strange directions when we put a radius offset too large into the tool page. But other than that these machines have made their money back. We keep all of them running about 70% of the time with our work load.
Last edited by perrettamachine; 09-30-2005 at 10:47 AM.
Reason: Additional comment
I don't know about all of this heat stuff. My Fadal sits in a garage in Scottsdale, in the summer it can get 110 degrees. I run parts all year. I've gotten an axis fault a time or two while using the MPG with the 4th axis on but that's the extent of the errors I could contribute to heat.
Anyone know what this means???
I went to tool change and notice that I get this error.. Also I notice that the lines at the control show the same for about four or five instances.. The program is fine but the control must be referencing an alarm..
Like an idiot I had the air off.. I have since gone back and re cold started the machine.. Still have the same problem.
I did put in an old program to disprove any program claim..
I don't miss having to work on the Fadals, we use to run seven of the 4020's. Summer=problems. But I also know that is true with our lathes...all 37 of them.
i have noticed three things with a fadel i use to run,heat was sometimes a factor,second,we had to put a computer right near the machine,it didnt like long com lines running out to the machine,i think it was interference that messed up this fadel,third,it we did alot of sufacing,and when we used the filter for arcs option in our software the machine would run off sometimes,arcs and radii can be a problem with the fadels,dont know why
hope these ideas help
steve
We have 3 fadals, our oldest a 92 VMC 20
for no reason about once every other day it randomly goes into slide hold or the much worse, spindle cuts out for no real clear reason. this is over the winter so the shop is 70 degrees.
I bought a Fadal with a FANUC control, magically, all the runaway issues fadal keeps telling me is from my custom software have gone away, meanwhile 2 of 3 of my other fadal's continue to have problems... They are more than willing to help by the way. They (at $100 per hour) will swap boards until you are blue in the face.....
A customer of mine i.e. they also use my Revcam software solved there problem as well, they just bought 2 new Haas machines. I tried to talk them
into a Fanuc control base machine, but at the last minute they went with
the Haas. Hopefully problem goes away....... Anyone want to buy a couple 4020's?
I had intermittent runaway problems with my older 4020 (1988!) until we had the transistors and capacitors on the power supply replaced. It would run away sometimes, other times the control would blink off and restart itself (home axes and hit cs to start...) It's the older linear type, not the newer switch mode (PC type power supply), but in the year or so since the power supply rebuild we haven't had a single problem.
Fadal runaway problems?
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Anyone want to buy a couple 4020's?
