[Gninok]

Hello CNC Enthusiasts!

This is my first post here, so hello! I’m a student product designer (24 years old) and mainly involved with 3D printing and CAD in Fusion360 and some in SolidWorks.

I work in a start-up company (in the Netherlands) where we build Campervan interiors. To improve our production we’ve recently bought a new CNC machine. So far we’ve only done a tiny bit of work with a ‘simple’ 3 axis machine, with Mach3, where we had to do everything (tool changing, homing, et cetera) manually.

Our new machine (We’ve bought it second hand. The previous owner barely used it):
- Syntec 6mb control system (machine is made by Blue Elephant if I’m not mistaken)
- 4th axis : the spindle rotates +90 to -90 degrees along the x-axis
- Tool changer for up to 8 tools
- A work area of 2500 by 1300 millimeters
- Automatic homing and tool measuring (and all that good stuff)
The machine moves around just fine and we’ve seen it work without any problems at the previous owner’s place. Since moving it to our place we haven’t changed anything and the machine had not been disassembled during the moving process.

But we’re having the following problem:
When running a test program that involves a tool change or the automatic tool measuring sequence: the machine moves to the tool changer, ‘parks’ the tool without any problems and releases it, then we get the alarm code
‘MLC 81 – No Tool’ (which is obvious, because it released it),
then after about 5 second we get the alarm code
‘MLC 97 – Spindle Clamping/Unclamping Failure’
The machine doesn’t do or say anything after this.

What we’ve checked:
- We’re able to jog the Z axis up and the machine does release the tool properly.
- The spindle and tool holders are all clean and undamaged.
- The air pressure is at 8bar (which the previous owner had as well). Also no leaks have been found.
- We’ve checked the wiring and everything seems to be installed correctly and no bad connections.
- We’ve tried setting the reference coordinates of the tool changer more precisely (so that the spindle is not pulling or pushing on the tool holder when ‘parking’ and releasing it).
- Doing a tool change sequence without the ‘hub’/tool changer, so catching the tool with our hand, still gave the alarm code,
- We’ve gone pretty deep in google searches and on forums, but couldn’t find anything specific about this problem or alarm code.

If there’s anyone with more knowledge about these Syntec systems or anyone who recognizes this particular problem, we’d love some help!

(Some photos and videos that a colleague made: https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...01P2_Tc5wCALvI )

Kind regards,
Gideon