Hawke 150 Output/Fuse Failure.

Hi guys got this error come up on my cincinatti hawke 150 (output/fuse failure in APC Rack 0) never had this one before checked a few things out but nothing really stands out.
1 checked power coming into machine
2 changed the power supply.
3 changed the hard drive.
4 pulled all the boards nothing seemed fried or damaged and reseated them.
5 checked the fuses on output board and swapped a few around just in case also swapped a few 24volt relays on input board but not all of them.
I am not quite sure what to check next,some say the realtime board has brought up errors like this before, but the machine starts up perfect with no errors on the start up screen all the lights are green on the drives,all lights are green on bridge board no errors,and lights are green drive cards io.If someones can help I need to get the machine going im right in the middle of a job.Cheers.

What do you have coming out of your 24 volt power supply?

I had a quick look on the out put board but ran out of time to do much more,where would the most reliable place to check this voltage be.thanks for the reply.

Check directly on the 0 and 24V points on the power supply.

Hey Mav had a good look today what the voltage was coming out of the power supply PSU2 it is showing around 23.75 DC volts,I followed a couple of the wires down to the input board and the voltage is around the same.As stated before everything appears to have started correctly with no errors on the drives and the diagnostics on the computor boards seem to have started correctly,the machine aligns correctly including the spindle hydraulics are all running but just cannot get past this error to start the spindel.Any ideas where to keep looking,I have checked the fuses where the 24v power supply is and some of the fuses on the output board?

If I'm remembering correctly, every time I've seen that alarm (always on Verticals though), it has been either a failure of the 24V power supply, or a short in the machine's wiring bringing the voltage down.

Is this intermittent or a permanent fault? If intermittent, you would need to be monitoring that voltage at the moment the failure occurs.

If it is a permanent fault, and your I/O is getting power (check to verify there is power at relevant inputs and outputs), although I have never run into it personally, I have heard of the RT board causing this fault since it processes the signals from the I/O card. That said, I suppose it could also be in the I/O card or Bridge Board since these both must be functioning for the RT board to get the proper signal from the I/O card.

Thanks for your imformation and all your help its always a pain when error codes can mean so many things and if you dont work on these controls all day long it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.This machine has had the easiest life a machine can have it is lucky to be run once every 2 months and maby for a couple of days at a time its never worked hard and run at well below its working speeds and feeds and theres always something going on with it.Anyways enough complaining I was lucky enough to find my arrow 500 has exactly the same control boards that the hawke has so I swapped out the realtime boards and the lathe works fine no errors,so it looks like its the realtime board is the problem.So the next question is have you had much experiance with component replacement or will I have to send the board out for repair im not sure there are many over here that do these repairs.cheers greg.

I'm glad you had a second set of boards to test with as this one could have been difficult to confirm otherwise, and I hate to recommend sending a board out for repair because it "could" be the problem.

I stay busy enough working on machines that it doesn't make sense for me repair these boards at the component level. Although there are a lot of companies around that can fix these boards, if there is something physically wrong with them, I usually send it to Siemens. They have a flat rate repair charge regardless of what is wrong with it (unless it is deemed unrepairable). For simple items like the battery replacement and BIOS issues, this flat rate is a bit ridiculous, but for other issues, this frequently works out better than paying an hourly rate to a technician that may or may not know what he is doing.

I'm not sure what options you have for repair there, but if you send me a PM with the board's part number, I can at least let you know what Siemens would charge here for comparison before you find a local shop to work on it.

I can well imagine the problems you encounter working on these things,I dont envy your job but I must say without help from techs like you guys there would be a lot of people on this forum that would have broken machines all over the place sitting around doing nothing but gathering dust.I have been very lucky over the years keeping this machine running,but most issues have been reasonably simple and almost all have been revolving around the power supply and board seating,although the spindel drive had to be sent back to the states to be repaired with a battery change.Im going to have a bit more of a look at this board but I will give you the board number so i can get a idea what seimens will charge the part number is 3-424-2168A02 just a thought this would have nothing to do with the board loosing a part of its BIOS would it.If I haven't already said it thanks again for all your help,cheers Greg.

I was thinking about whether it could be a bios related issue too, but since I've never run into it before can't say one way or the other. I suppose it could be a possibility if only some of the settings have been corrupted.

Since Siemens pricing does change regularly I'll send you a PM with the current repair price. Don't want to post it here and have it not be current when someone views this thread.

Greg B,

The FivesMSI-Cincinnati Tech Support number is 1-859-534-4750 8-5 EST USA
For the UK built Verticals ask for Greg Wood; if Greg is out ask for Mike Trunk. Please have your machine serial Number i.e. "70xx-x0x-xx0123"; Model Type i.e. "ERO" and control Schematics i.e. "9120xxxx" from the back plate on the outside of the electrical cabinet.

The (output/fuse failure in APC Rack 0) is cause by many things.
Possible Causes:
• Machine Power Supply 24VDC Output fuse blown or low voltage. Normally should be 24VDC-25VDC
• J2-01&02, J2-13&14, J2-25&26, J2-37&38 are +24 VDC power on the J2 Output Connector. J2-11&12, J2-23&24, J2-35&36, J2-47&48 are 0-VDC return on the J2 Output Connector.
• A CMHD Output is being pulled low due to a short or coolant contamination
• Bad CMHD Board or poor connection to BBB, or on 50pin connector (Do you have one to swap with?) J2 connector is at the TOP. There is a tape trick test that can be done... ([email protected])
• Bad BBB (Basic Bridge Board) is the BBB LED ON; top of three Red LEDs on the lower left corner of the BBB Card?
• Bad Real-Time CPU (located far right-hand side in the control rack) or loss of the CMOS on the board due to a low battery (below 2.7VDC), or poor connection to BBB Note: This battery cannot be changed unless the board is on a bench under power. Some older boards had a Dallas Real-Time Chip with an internal battery. The whole chip has to be changed by a skilled solder technician. The BIOS on the RT-CPU board is normally Flashed into it on a Benchtop using a Floppy disk at the OEMs site.