416 X Servo Alarm

Hi.
We run a Sykes Fanuc W1 Wire Eroder, quite an old machine now but still very much used. Last night I ran a job overnight but in the morning when I looked at it the machine was showing a 416 X Servo Alarm and the job (a multi repeated job which runs about 30 in a row) had run off at an angle in the X direction. This has never happened before, either the run off or the alarm. I had to shut it off, which cleared the alarm, but when I tried to move the machine out of the way it ran very oddly in X. It sounded odd, kind of clicks but with a slight groan. I took the skirts off and there didn't seem to be any issue with the guides the machine runs on, enough grease there. Whenever I try and move X axis I get the sound and then it alarms out with the 416. One of the guys thought it might be the servo itself, maybe some slack in the coupling between the ballscrew and the servo.

Any ideas?

Regards.
Kris.

Hi Chris

I am not sure I can help with the issue but I do have some spare parts off a Model P which might be similar including motors and drives etc. PM if you need anything. Might be worth cleaning the motor brushes though as I had to do that a few times.

Actually just had a thought. If the machine has a hit a hard limit there is an overload switch on the servo drive which needs to be manually reset. Could be worth checking

Hi Lomach.
Thanks for your reply. One of our guys said it might be the servo, but we needed to separate the servo from the screw so we did that, and when we moved the x axis the servo made the same weird sound the machine had, so it is almost certainly the servo motor that has gone. The servo and the encoder come as one it seems, so, if you have one of those you would be the most awesome person ever. I'll send you a PM.