[CastleWorks]

Hi,

I am getting alarm #530 Over Travel +Z on my Bridgeport Interact 412. Looking at the attached picture the machine thinks the Z axis is at 16" but in reality the machine is at about 6".I am also including a picture of the controller.

I have cleaned the limit switch and all three plungers associated with it. They operate freely and return to their extended position when depressed.

I am able to jog Z down off the limit, but as soon as I try to go up at all the machine immediately alarms. The result of this is the spindle keeps getting lower, but I cannot jog it up at all. X and Y jog functions work fine.

History on this machine: This is a new install and I was able to successfully run ZRN once, then this problem started.

I am real new to this machine, so it's best not to assume anything. I appreciate any help you can offer.

Thanks in advance

[RMARCH]

Did you try zeroing the Z axis ?

[CastleWorks]

UPDATE....I have made some progress but still not quite there yet.

I was told that when the power is removed from the machine the spindle will drop to the point it hits a stop and that I should place a wooden block under the spindle if power will be removed from the machine for any length of time.....and that if this is not done and the machine is allowed to travel too far down it will lose it's "mind" and it will think it is always at the +Z limit....which is what I was experiencing. The fix was to manually move the spindle back up, power the machine on and the rerun ZRN to zero the machine.

I manually moved the spindle up, powered on the machine and was then able to jog freely up and down. When I go to run the ZRN and zero it, it starts performing it correctly and slowly moves up however when it reaches 15.99xx" it alarms with an over travel _+Z. I am able to jog off that alarm and jog up or down, but when I rezero it the same thing happens....at 15.99xx" it alarms.

Is there an alignment routine for the limit switch? or a parameter that is just slightly out of whack?

Thanks

Kevin

[CastleWorks]

UPDATE: Solution

I found that when I manually moved the spindle back to the top, that I did not get it moved ALL the way to the top and stopped at a point the limit switch on the far right had not ramped down and was no longer depressed. apparently it thought this was it's "new" zero location.

After I moved the spindle up about another inch to the point the limit switch was not longer depressed, and then powered on the machine, everything worked fine and I was able to run ZRN.

I was able to recreate this condition several times and all seems to be working fine now.