[jnc]

Hi Folks,
I purchased an ‘89 Fadal 4020HT that had been out of use for about two years. The ways appear pretty good but the controls need to be updated/repaired and the inverter also repaired. I’ve been cleaning the coolant tank and ordering some parts that were determined to be faulty (Crydom solid state relays). I’ve even made a toe jack in order to get the new feet on and level the machine. I’ll be wiring the machine (3-phase -15HP) this weekend. The interior of the machine both inside the electronics/power cabinets and inside the machining cabinet is filthy. I’ll wait to clean the machining area until I can move the saddle and clean underneath it. The company I work for “donated” about 4 gallons of coolant concentrate (Val-cool Turn Tech) so when the machining cabinet is freshly cleaned I’ll be loading in the coolant and spraying everything down to prevent rust.

If anyone has any words of wisdom I’d be glad to hear them. I’m going to have plenty of questions when it comes time to update the controls

[nervis1]

I just ressurected a 95 VMC15 a few months back. Mine was filthy as well. Had to replace the CRT, hard drive mother board and for good measure I upgraded all of the cards to -5 (current). I had to use about 6 bottles of simple green and three boxes of shop towels to clean the thing over about a week. I replaced the front plexiglass and way covers too. They were pretty dinged up. Happy to say it holds tolerances like new after getting the rep out to tune and calibrate the servos. When he saw it for the first time he said it looked new, it had aparently been cutting plastic most of it's life. The coolant tank looked unused, and the prev owner had rigged up an air blast to replace the coolant.

The controller update was easy. A simple card cage and card swap. Just make sure to label everything before unhooking and set the jumpers correctly on the xyz and spindle cards. You will also have to re-balance the vector drive. You'll need one of those keypads that plugs into the invertor. All of the jumper settings and instructions for balancing servos, balancing the invertor are on the Fadal website. The same info will come on a CD when you order the kit. I took mine to Kinkos and had them all put into big binders, I find it to be a pain to use PDF files, I like books much better.

Congrats on the mill. wish I had 40 X 20! Keep us up to date on your progress.

[nervis1]

Oh and I don't know about spraying everything with Val-cool. I take off my subplate once a week and despite using coolant with "rust preventative" there is always the beginning of surface rust there to be wiped off. I'd wipe everything down with machine oil untill it's ready to be used.

[jnc]

Thanks Nervy,

The description of your mills condition sounds exactly like mine...same thing exactly...scratched plexiglass...worn out CRT...filthy......I'll be putting more money into this as far as parts are concerned. This machine has been cutting mostly aluminum and a little steel from the chips I'm pulling out from under the saddle. There's quite a few miles on this mill so ball screws are definately in this mills future. The mill was in service just till the time they pulled it. The company machined large objects and had to make room in the machine shop for two 80X30's!

I'm using Zep purple industrial cleaner, from home depot, it dissolves the coolant and gunk quite well.

I am confused abit about the controller...I'll update the controls to -5 but what about the 32MP control or does that just refer to the control pendant?

I understand that the 32MP has a PC in the pendant itself. Is this what you have nervis?........
Also the motor is'nt a vector drive....so no rigid tapping for me.....The inverter is an old SWEO/Baldor drive too.

At the present time the control is'nt even an HS and no floppy disk either.
I'm really not sure whether to buy a whole new pendant or what?

[nervis1]

There are five flavors of pendant that I know of...Neal can correct me if I'm wrong here. The 88, 88hs, and 32mp. The agusta is their brand new one than there are the siemens variety. The controller update is a big pile of cards that replaces everything in the main card enclosure, xyz cards, spindle controller, interface card etc. The pendant is just the control interface, the keyboard and screen, with the upgrade kit the only thing that gets replaced in the pendant is the keyboard pcb card.

I have the 32mp, just an 88hs with a built in PC from what I can tell.

http://www.cncpros.net/



If you need a new controller or parts (like new screws) check these guys. I've bought lots of stuff from them and never had any problems. They have used stuff too, and memory upgrades. A new pendant from Fadal may run 10k or more, look for one used for sure.

Another great source for info and parts is Fadal itself, Neal there is tech support is a really nice guy and helped me out many times.

If your pendant is working then adding a floppy should be pretty easy,
never done it but I cant imagine it's too tough. Open that pendant up and look through the documentation on pendants on Fadals site. There may be a plug just sitting there waiting for a 20$ floppy drive. And the documentation for your sweo
drive is in there in the maintanance manual if I remember right...on Fadals site.

Don't let the bumps in the road get you down...after you get all of the issues addressed you'll have a really sweet setup.

The good news about your mill is that you can still upgrade everything and replace everything. Parts have been very easy to find. CNCpros has those CRT's cheap by the way.

[Scott_bob]

JNC,

What is the status of your project?

Still want to keep the Fadal control?

Let us know,

[jnc]

I'm not having problems with the control I'm having problems with the amp chassis...as far as I can tell. I had a runaway axis which followed the servo amp board (glentek). I've been able to jog both axis but I get (sometimes) an amplifier fault which prevents me from moving the X or Y axis ( I removed the offending runaway amp card). Replacement amp board is approx. $1000.

I'm not looking for a new control and if I was I'm sure your control is probably more than the cost of what I paid for the whole machine.

I' not competing against the Chinese for business. I'm just a hobbiest/tinkerer
with a few ideas I want to turn into reality.

[nervis1]

Sorry if you have already thought of this but I had the same problem after changing all my cards to -5.

Check the jumper settings on the cards very carefully. I had the same problem on my Z axis, was just a jumper setting.

[3t3d]

Originally posted by jnc
I'm not having problems with the control I'm having problems with the amp chassis...as far as I can tell. I had a runaway axis which followed the servo amp board (glentek). I've been able to jog both axis but I get (sometimes) an amplifier fault which prevents me from moving the X or Y axis ( I removed the offending runaway amp card). Replacement amp board is approx. $1000.

I'm not looking for a new control and if I was I'm sure your control is probably more than the cost of what I paid for the whole machine.

I' not competing against the Chinese for business. I'm just a hobbiest/tinkerer
with a few ideas I want to turn into reality.

Is it possible that a bad tachometer feedback is causing the run away axis?
I know if you disconnect it on other machines the axis cannot sit still, if it thinks it is getting a constant signal, it might run away trying to catch the tach.

Of course I could be completey wrong

Pete

[jnc]

3t3d ....are you saying the fault is with the amp card? or the servo encoder? I assume you mean disconnecting the "tach." connection from the amp board.

Nervy.....The system was upgraded to -4 in '93 . I too found the axis control boards weren't correct at one point. The axis boards are each labeled X,Y,Z but the jumper could turn a Z axis board to a Y axis board and guess what.....when I installed the boards according to they're jumpers the two axis worked and the third would runaway causing an emergency stop condition. After removing the offending axis amp board it ran (jogged) fine.

The problem now is that if I power on the machine it will work but if I power down then back on..... I get an axis fault when ever I go to jog any particular axis. I'm begining to think it might be faulty connection rather than a beat component.

I'm studying the power schematics. hopefully I can trace this to a bad connection.

As far as the faulty amp board is concerned, if anyone out there has experience troubleshooting the Glentek amp board model GA4568E-1
I'd sure like to hear from ya....the local control repair place seems to think that the big black 2"x4" rectangle thing on the board seems to be the offending culprit. I believe they said it was a type of transistor?

[3t3d]

Originally posted by jnc
3t3d ....are you saying the fault is with the amp card? or the servo encoder? I assume you mean disconnecting the "tach." connection from the amp board.

I can't possibly "know"!
I read that the problem followed the amp card....
If it follows that card, is it configured wrong, or is it a specific circuit that is at fault?
That made me speculate what could possibly cause runaway symptoms on an amp card based on (limited) previous experience.
Now I have bared my troubleshooting thought process.
Pete

[jnc]

3t3d......I've gotten word that on the older amp cards the power transistors...there's eight along the backend of the board....tend to go bad after a couple of years. I found a replacement part from Galco electronics but I've decided to purchase a replacement amp card anyway.

I've also been told that if your parameters are set to 3-axis and you remove one amp card, the software will sometimes give an amplifier fault but not always. If this is the case the new amp card should solve my problems. I'll be putting the amp card in this weekend.

[jnc]

update....the new amp card works. I now have control over all three axes........ WHOOOHOO! . I turned the mill off then on and no problems. We'll see what happens in the upcoming days. Now I'll be inspecting the ballscrews and probably start replacing the turcite (sigh).

****Note**** If anyone has ever replaced the turcite in their Fadal or used Moglice rather than Turcite...I'd really like to hear from you. I'll probably start this in about a week.