[gearsoup]

Hey all,

I have a 1994 SuperMax Max-1 Rebel, 0M control. I bought it from one of my customers, as they upgraded a bunch of stuff. It worked fine for them for many years, so I figured it was going to do the same for me....

Not so.

I an get the spindle to turn on no problem. When it does an M19 (spindle orient) it alarms out. Error 409 on the screen, Error #12 on the spindle drive.
So far, we have replaced the following: Spindle drive, power supply, the spindle drive again, just in case, and another power supply. All of these repairs were done in the last 2 weeks. Last week, we had FANUC themselves in here to diagnose it, and they say it's a spindle motor alarm. Anyone ever come across this issue?

[Al_The_Man]

Error 12 usually shows a shorted Power device in the drive. But if it turns OK with a S value and a M3/M4, then it must be something causing overcurrent when doing the orient. If you just MDI M19 without an S value first does it alarm out? Does the spindle try and turn?
Al.

[BluegrassPicker]

Not familiar with the Supermax, but does it have a prox switch that senses the spindle orientation? Mori uses a magnetic ring with a sensor on some of theirs to orient the spindle, so you may check for a prox or sometype of sensor on the top of the spindle itself.

[gearsoup]

The SuperMax has a mechanical spindle orient. There is a cam and a roller that engage to lock the spindle in place.

We tried an M19 in MDI the very first time we fired up the machine, and then it alarmed out.

Al, we are running the machine now. We just have all the toolholders on the bench, since we can't do a tool change (need to M19). Handloading sucks....

[gearsoup]

Error 12 usually shows a shorted Power device in the drive. But if it turns OK with a S value and a M3/M4, then it must be something causing overcurrent when doing the orient. If you just MDI M19 without an S value first does it alarm out? Does the spindle try and turn?
Al.

Yes, the spindle tries to turn. When it gets to the point that the mechanism is ready to engage, it alarms out. The mechanism that holds the spindle in place is air powered, so we bypassed the solenoid that controls it. It still did it.....

However, we DID have 2 succesful orients, but apparently, that was just dumb luck. Fanuc is saying that perhaps there is a dead spot in the motor right before the orient position. I don't want to be throwing more money at this thing. We paid $25k for the machine, and we are looking at another $6k to $10k.....
I should have bought a Sharpe when I was at Eastec this summer. Or a Twinhorn. Both of those machines were aroung $38k NEW....

[gearsoup]

Here is a rundown of everything that has transpired with the machine:

At my customers place, they had a power surge or something, because they lost 3 power supplies in one day. A month ago, they lost the spindle amp in the Supermax.

We have an electrician come to the shop and upgrade our service to 400 amps. He also installs 2 more phase converters. (American Rotary)

We buy the SuperMax Rebel mill, as well as a SuperMax TC-2 lathe, get them shipped over here, have them leveled, trammed in and everything. (we also currently have a Johnford SV-40, running off of a Phase-A-Matice converter)

We find out that the counter weight and chains had fallen off their rollers during the move. No biggie. We put them back on, and zero out the machine.

The Rebel is a 7.5 HP machine, no HI-LO range. We have a 15hp RPC. The Lathe is a 15HP motor, we have a 25HP RPC. THe Johnford is a 15HP spindle, and we have a 25hp RPC for that.

We fire up the Rebel, run it through all the spindle speeds. No problem. However, at speeds less than 200, the load meter starts to climb. At about 100 RPM, the load starts to end up around 100% or more, and the spindle starts to pulse and then start to slow down.

We did an M19, and then spindle alarmed out.

We called up FANUC, and they said that we had too much power going to the machine. The manual that came with the machine says: 220v, +10%, -15%. We had 238 volts going to the machine. That is technically within the range. Nevertheless, we had our electrician install a "buck-boost" transformer, ($1200 installed) knocking the voltage down to 208. The manufactured leg is about 3-4% higher. (Fanuc told us to bring it to 208).
It still alarmed out.
Then they said that perhaps we fried the spindle drive with too much power. We had a new one here the next day. Installed it, and it still did it.
My machinery repair guy came up a couple days later with another spindle drive, and a power supply. He tried the drive, and it still did it. The power supply he had would not fit into the slot, so he had Fanuc ship us another one. We had that in the machine in a couple of days....
It still did it.

So, we had Fanuc come up to the shop. They ran a bunch of diagnostics, played with parameters to adjust the gain and feedback (I think) and it still does it.....

We played with the air pressure going to the machine, hoping that was the issue. It wasn't.....

[gearsoup]

We also tried reversing the phase on the machine, as well as trying out the other 2 RPC's. No dice.

[GEM]

To prove or disprove a dead motor spot, alter your orientation position, either on orient card or maybe in parameters, if it still does it, the motor is in a different position so it would not be a motor fault.

[not an expert]

I've seen this type of problem on a lathe a long time ago. FANUC tried drives, power supplies etc. It ended up being the position coder for orient. I know you mentioned mechanical orient but how does the CNC know where to stop? Might check around the spindle and see if there is a position coder. Just my 2 cents.

[Aleks]

Make sure that spindle is not trying to rotate after your lock mechanism is engaged
This easily can give you overload alarm… It could be involved a proximity switch that determined if your lock mechanism in position and motion is done.

[Big_d]

You have probably all ready looked but could it be the attachment of the spindle encoder shaft being loose or bad bearings? It would explain both the hunting at low speed and the difficulty orienting.
Just a thought
Daza

[gearsoup]

Allegedly, the machine does not have an encoder. It can't rigid tap, so I guess that's true.

We had the spindle motor changed out yesterday. It still does it. x eleventy billion

We even tried disabling the mechanism that locks the spindle. It still does it.

Here is how the system works, according to my repair guy: M19 tells the spindle to do a revolution until the plunger is activated. Once the plunger hits a limit switch, the spindle stops, and the plunger locks it in place. The plunger is air activated. We tried changing the air pressure. No dice.

He tested the plunger. It's fine. He tested the limit switches. They're fine. It's got a new spindle drive and motor. I think we are SOL......

[Big_d]

Hello gearsoup
This is a tricky one,I am making a few assumptions as I have never seen one of these machines but they are mostly all the same. Have you tried to operate the spindle orient switch with the orient lock mechanically disabled? If you type in an m19 then hit the switch what does the spindle do? It should stop once the switch is activated, does it hunt when the switch is activated, if so does the drive then trip or just keep moving? You appear to have done this already if so I would be looking at the spindle controller next. Perhaps when the old spindle controller was nuked when with the previous owners the change over was either different or not configured correctly (dead give away Wont rigid tap?). Do you have a manual for that particular drive, as that would outline the required input to release the power from the motor for a free wheel orient like you describe this machine requires (Could just add a jump wire from the spindle orient lock switch). Does the machine use 1 or 2 resolvers for speed control? May be unrelated to the drive and the cnc not telling the drive to drop the power off?
There would be a brute force way around this problem if all else fails and that would be to use a contactor on the motor feed cables that would be normally closed and only opened via the orient lock switch. I have done this on a dodgy spindle motor retro fit (Not done by me, someone fitted a second hand drive and motor and gave us no docs for it:withstupi ) on an old Mazak V5.
When you say the switches were tested were they confirmed via monitoring input bits on the screen or just metered out?
Just a few more ideas
Cheers
Daza

[bborb]

The spindle wants to be in "creep" mode during orient. This speed is MUCH less than 200 RPM so it sounds like your problem is starting/maintaining a "creep" RPM for any length of time. I assume the other shop didn't run phase converters so this points to a power problem. I don't have the answer but I can say it is CRITICAL where you put the generated leg on the main disconnect/terminal.

[gearsoup]

Well, it's finally fixed! WOOT!!!!!!!
They tried one more spindle drive (this would be #5 so far). This one had older software loaded on it. Everything works mint! YAY!!!!!!!!
Thanks for all the input guys.

[nanda23]

Kindly tell me the FAnuc system series like oma/omb/omc/omd

Hey all,

I have a 1994 SuperMax Max-1 Rebel, 0M control. I bought it from one of my customers, as they upgraded a bunch of stuff. It worked fine for them for many years, so I figured it was going to do the same for me....

Not so.

I an get the spindle to turn on no problem. When it does an M19 (spindle orient) it alarms out. Error 409 on the screen, Error #12 on the spindle drive.
So far, we have replaced the following: Spindle drive, power supply, the spindle drive again, just in case, and another power supply. All of these repairs were done in the last 2 weeks. Last week, we had FANUC themselves in here to diagnose it, and they say it's a spindle motor alarm. Anyone ever come across this issue?

[gbowne1]

Yep, sometimes it's just a software problem.

[m@chinist]

Hello Guys, nice You solved the problem. i have similar one
after M19 spindle load meter is growing till 70 - 90 % (was growing). spindle does not vibrate too much. just to make tool change is good enough.
in the factory before it worked ok. last month we switched the machine to new plant. gave new transformer. now its powered up with 225 V. before it was 200 V.
after some time we have "not ready" problem and a spindle alarm no 3 - we've put new fuse inside, then we have alarm no 12. checking the transistors. the big one (6DI50A-060) was short circuit and a small one (ETG81-050) also damaged. spindle servo drive is A06B-60590H003.
is this possible we fried up the spindle drive with 225v input power ??
i thought it was designed to work with 220 V with some tolerance for + and - ......
the transistors we have already exchanged but now we wonder if we should lower the voltage or we should look for other reason of the problem ?

[underthetire]

225 should be no problem, however some early spindle drives have a toggle switch for 200 /220 volt. Did the machine get wet during transport? Did it sit for a long time?

[m@chinist]

hello underthetire
it did not got wet, but is was outdoor for 2 weeks in november - under the roof only. it sit for about 4 weeks.
i wonder the problem comes
1. cause of the transport,
2. cause there was a time for the unit to get damage (it happens after long time of working hours power elements are used)
3. or cause of voltage problems related to the new transformer (225 V ac) or maybe some flutter on power supply line - overvoltage ?
if we can find point 1 or 2 as a reason - then just exchange the power elements, put the drive back in - and go.
but if point 3 - power supply problems - my thinking is power transistors should not get damaged, cause they are as an output element at dc side. ac side was ok. so - we could not treat it as a reason. what do You think ?