[Bwana Don]

Hey guys and gals,

My Fadal is faulting out;
1998 3016HT

C Axis fault(s) as follows;
Axis Controller Does Not Respond To NC
Recent Repairs;
Spindle
Spindle Motor
VFD
Encoder
Resistors

Any one know what is causing this? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Don

[carbidecraters]

Does your drive even power up? Sometimes a plug (long 12 pin) can work its way loose and cause that exact problem. Sometimes its the spindle card, sometimes its the drive. Often times its something stupid simple.

[Bwana Don]

Runs for about an hour and a half before faulting out.

We took out the Spindle Controller Card (Slot 14) and used a pink eraser on the contacts. I'll go check and see what the night shift had to say.

[Bwana Don]

Well she shut down three times in six hours for the night shift.

By drive do you mean the VFD? We just replaced it.

[Bwana Don]

Now the machine won't run. Here's the new fault;

Failure setting Servo Gain.

I can get a remanufactured Controller Card for $600.00. I might do that, it looks more and more like the card.

We've had a series of electrical outages here over the last 3 months. We've had a brownout too. Right after the brownout (2 weeks) we had two cnc machines with major electrical problems. Siemens drives, Fadal VFD..... I wonder if all this is related???

OK going to get the card now.

[Bwana Don]

Looks like it's fixed.

We repalaced the controller card, moved the emporoms over (orientation is critical) and jumpered it. Still acted a little goofy. We then disabled the A axis controller card. Now it's running.

It looks like either;
a) A axis controller card was bad and polluting the Spindle Controller card
b) Both cards were fried

What are you guys doing as far as surge protection? While I was looking at the card rack, we had a power outage! An hour later it came back on. WTF?????In the last two months we've spent a carp load on electrical components.

VMC-760 Bridgeport
Simo dirives
Heidenhein encoder
Spindle motor
Spindle motor fan
Cabinet fans

Fadal;
VFD
Spindle (not electrical, but a bad pump)
Two Encoders
Spindle Motor (bad bearings)
Two controller cards

ALL this in the last month. I'm thinking spikes, surges, dirty electricity. What do you guys think?

[Bwana Don]

Here we go again. Just got a #10 fault. Spindle motor overload.

[Bwana Don]

We replaced the sensor on the spindle. The one that pick up the magnet. So far all is well, it ran for 10 hours no faults.

Apparantly the sensor wasn't picking up the magnet and the machine thought the spindle was stopping. It then red lines the motor and if it stilll doesn't pick up a sigmnal shuts the machine down. It thinks the motor is stalled.

I still think dirty electricity is behind all this. Or something els is going bad in the machine and frying other components. Well it's running for the moment. Time to make parts.