Failing Wire Guide Adjustment Charmilles Robofil 240 CC

**ashbuhbee** · 10-15-2016, 07:39 AM

Hello all,
I've changed over our wire EDM from .010" wire to .004" wire, and during the wire guide alignment process, I receive error messages E67 "Cycle Aborted" and E68 "Out of Tolerance". The info page for resolving these issues basically says 'hit reset and run it again', but the same error messages come up again and again.

P/S ALARM
ALARM 67
The edging (G70), hole centering (G71), slit centering (G72), or wire guides adjustment (G73) was interrupted by the following:
1. FEED HOLD (I don't know what this is)
2. Wire breakage (wire isn't broken)
3. Measure cycle starting with short-circuit (I started in the center of the guide adjustment tool)
4. Change of operation mode (?)
5. Alarm other than P/S (this says it is a P/S alarm at the top of the page, so, no)
6. No establishment of the reference position (guide adjustment page has no requirement for a reference position [if they mean the center of the guide adjustment tool {the ZB height}, then that IS established on that page])
Press RESET, then execute the measure cycle again.

P/S ALARM
ALARM 68
The error of the detection point exceeded the tolerance in the measure cycle. (Yesterday the tolerance was set for .00198". When it failed this morning, I upped the tolerance to .005" and it still failed. Being that this is .004" wire, the product is required to be VERY accurate- I'm not sure what increasing the tolerance will give me for a quality product.)
Response:
Press RESET, then execute the measure cycle again.

Any advice?

Thanks,
Ash

Follow up- Instead of aborting the cycle in the middle of moving the U and V axes, it then started to abort only while establishing the X and Y axes. Then, it would abort when the Z raised up to begin the guide alignment. I restarted the machine (when in doubt, turn it off then on again, right?) and it continues to abort the cycle when the Z raises up to begin alignment.

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**KilrB** · 10-17-2016, 12:35 PM

I'm not familiar with the 240CC but, just to be sure:

Did you also change to .004" guides?

Did you put new pinch rollers, contacts, and belts on?

Did you make sure the correct .WIR and .TEC files are active?

Are you using a new alignment eyelet?

Is it possible you are making contact in the eyelet's entry slot?

Have you checked the upper head for any wire fragments?

**ashbuhbee** · 10-17-2016, 12:57 PM

Thank you for your suggestions! I was thinking no one would write back!

-Yes, changed to .004" guides
-Yes, new pinch rollers, contacts flipped to new surface, belts flipped from coarse to fine side
-Yes, correct .WIR and .TEC files activated
-No, not a new alignment eyelet (but the newer of the two we have)
-No, not in contact with eyelet- visually move wire to center-ish of 1/4" hole
-No, haven't checked upper head for wire fragments (but I DID just pull the whole thing apart to clean it this morning)

About to perform complete tear down of upper and lower heads to check for wire fragments.

**KilrB** · 10-17-2016, 02:57 PM

If you took the upper head apart and didn't see any fragments that's good.

Check your unspooling pulley, the aluminum one @ the green belt, for an excessive groove.

If .01" wire has grooved this too deeply for it to grip .004" wire that may be the problem, but usually causes wire breaks.

Did you adjust the your pinch rollers for the .004" wire?

Not sure if the 240 CC heads are more like the Robofil or the CUT heads, but adjusting the pinch rollers for .004" wire is critical on both.

On the Robofil style heads it is a real pita.

Too little and the wire moves to the front and slips, too much and it does the same to the back.

Which controller does your machine have?

Did you run the wire-setup routine after changing everything and activating the proper .WIR and .TEC files?

Also, if this is akin to the Robofil machines be sure to turn "contact wetting" on when if/when you do this.

**ashbuhbee** · 10-19-2016, 08:24 AM

-Yes, the unspooling pulley DOES have quite a groove in it, but it's not causing any wire breakage
-Yes, I adjusted the pinch rollers for .004" wire
-I'm not sure what you mean by which controller does my machine have
-Typical wire guide alignment on this machine doesn't require manual selection of "contact wetting"

**ashbuhbee** · 10-19-2016, 08:29 AM

After a full breakdown of the upper and lower heads (lower head all the way down to the bearings) and thoroughly cleaning every little thing, here's what I replaced:

-the braided power supply connector from the upper head (braid was very frayed- most likely the main cause of problems)
-the "braid for rethreading subassembly" (lil horseshoe shaped copper contact that connects to the terminal that the upper carbide contact is attached to)
-the post-guide under the lower guide (there was a substantial groove cut into one side of the thru-hole)

Also, scrubbed and cleaned all copper contacts to lower and upper head- they were so patina'd that you couldn't tell they were copper, probably interfered with good connection for power

Thank you again so much for your help! It was nice to know I wasn't walking through this totally blind.

**KilrB** · 10-19-2016, 05:26 PM

Sounds like you got it fixed then ... ?

Good job.

From your description it seems to more resemble the Robofil machines.

They are non-submerged machines so turning on contact wetting for the wire-setup routine is a must.

The machine takes care of that during the guide alignment routine.

The Robofil series were available with three different controllers that I know of: Fanuc, Charmilles, and the "Millenium" ... thus my question.