[BBRC]

VF2 15 months old never had A problem.alarm 196 coolant spigot failure.It started last week couple times the programmable coolant kind of got lost kept going back up all the way towards the spindle.Now it wont even let me adjust with control.Is this something someone may say is an easy fix.Is there something maybe loose?Just going to have to replace the spigot box?
Thanks Chris

[HelicopterJohn]

One of the guys here on the forums gave me an old spigot nozzle (PCOOL) that was doing the same thing. This was the older 20 position PCOOL nozzle.

Another guy suggested that I take it apart and check the micro switch that rides on the cam. As it turns out the micro switch was missing some of the steps and caused the problem. I found a replacement micro switch at a local electronics store for around $2.00. I had to modify it a little but that fixed it and it has been working perfect ever since.

There is a post either here or on PM that has the pictures to show what was done to fix it. I don't know if the newer PCOOL nozzles are different or not. But before you throw it away I would check it out.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance. Just send me a PM with your phone number and a good time to call you and I will give you the details.

John

[BBRC]

Thanks John.I have 2 roller switches that both check out ok.I am going to pick them up from grainger and replace them for 7.00 doesnt hurt.The motor works.I manually bring the spigot down it brings it back home then its over,it does nothing after that.Change the switches and see what happens after that I will have to go deeper into the electrical I guess.

[behindpropeller]

Thanks John.I have 2 roller switches that both check out ok.I am going to pick them up from grainger and replace them for 7.00 doesnt hurt.The motor works.I manually bring the spigot down it brings it back home then its over,it does nothing after that.Change the switches and see what happens after that I will have to go deeper into the electrical I guess.

Do a search on here. One of the posts has a service bulletin that might help you.

Tim

[HelicopterJohn]

Hi Chris,

It has been a while but there are a couple of parameters and or settings that have to be correct. One of them is setting the number of coolant positions you have but I can't remember what the other one was. It they are not set correctly I can cause issues.

Has anyone changed any of your settings or parameters on or about the time that the alarm occurred.

Just another thing to take a look at if it applies to your situation.

John

[BBRC]

Changed switches still dont work.No settings or parameters were adjusted.I might have to trace the cable back to see if theres any breaks.As soon as I fired up the machine hit the power up button.She XYZ traveled home then the alarm went off It couldnt bring the spigot back up to find home.

[HelicopterJohn]

Hi Chris,

I guess anything can happen. When I took the cover off my HAAS TM-1P to install the spigot cable I found a ground wire that got smashed during the build process. No big deal but if that happened with the spigot cable time and vibration could take its toll.

Keep us up to date and let us know what you find. Good Luck!

John

[BBRC]

I am wondering if there is A "phasing" on the install.Do the switches need to be timed?Activated together at A certain point. wires are all good.Messing with machine manually brought it all the way down let the machine bring it back up and count the positions and it worked for 10 min,now not so.My HFO went out of buisness customer service was outstanding there,and the techs would have this resolved allready through A phone call.I dont even know if you can get parts in A timely manner here now.

[HelicopterJohn]

My machine has an 800 number sticker on it to call for Factory Help. I think I would try that option as your HFO went out of business.

John

[dahun]

I am wondering if there is A "phasing" on the install.Do the switches need to be timed?Activated together at A certain point. wires are all good.Messing with machine manually brought it all the way down let the machine bring it back up and count the positions and it worked for 10 min,now not so.My HFO went out of buisness customer service was outstanding there,and the techs would have this resolved allready through A phone call.I dont even know if you can get parts in A timely manner here now.

There is nothing you can tweek on the inside. There is no phasing either... It's all pretty simple stuff really. Often I see a lot of corrosion that builds up around the black shaft in the back. What gets me is that it worked well up to this point (?) and now it quit.
Disconnect the cable from the unit. You can manually run the unit (by rotating the large spur gear) and check that each lobe of the small cam actuates the counting switch by listening to the click. Also you can check that the homing switch mounted on the casting actuates when the cam pushes back on it. You should also feel more resistance to turning of the large spur gear when the switch engages. If you have both switches working, chances are good that it's not the pcool. Again, make sure that the black shaft rotates freely. You said that the motor moves the nozzle, so the motor is okay.
We have had I/O board issues with regards to the PCOOL circuit. This would require you to have a HFO tech out there... IF and when the tech comes out, have him demonstrate to you that the new board will work.
Let me know if this helped.
Please check this out:

[math_indy]

I was getting the coolant spigot failure alarm (code 196). After a lot of time fussing to figure out what was wrong, I determined that something was wrong with my PCOOL gear motor. There are four wires that go to the the PCOOL option. Two wires monitor a switch that closes every time a little cam toggles a switch and the other two wires output about either +10V or -10V to tell the gear motor which way to go. There is a home position switch that puts an extra 100 ohms in series with the gear motor when at the home position. I think this extra 100 ohms signals the I/O control board when the spigot is at the home position and maybe reduces the torques so it can't press too hard on the home switch.

OK so the PCOOL module is pretty simple and isn't too hard to disassemble. I took mine apart and manually applied + and - 10V to the gear motor to see if it would move. The gear motor draws about 300 mA so disconnect the gear motor wire and inject the + or - 10V directly to the motor to see if you can make it move. Do this only momentarily so that you don't jam the swing arm against the limits (or loosen the swing arm collar first). On mine I determined that my gear motor would only turn in one direction (the 12V motor brushes were broken). Haas wanted to exchange my entire PCOOL assembly for $650. The gear motor that I needed is MOLON CHM-1202-2 which you cannot get (easily) from Haas or from MOLON. I did find, however, that MOLON markets the exact same gear motor under the Dayton brand which is available from Grainger for about $65. The Dayton gear motor part number is 2L004.

If needed, here is a link to the replacement gear motor:
Gearmotor, 1.5rpm, 12vdc - Gearmotors - Gearmotors - Power Transmission : Grainger Industrial Supply

If your gear motor appears to be OK then, with the gear motor disconnected, check to see if the +/-10V signals are coming from the I/O board--these should be present at the pins where the gear motor was connected. You'll have to look with an oscilloscope because they only pulse for a short time. To make the pulses appear, disconnect the gear motor, reset the alarm an press the CLNT UP or DN buttons. I isolated my scope ground since I wasn't sure if either pin was grounded and didn't want to short the I/O board (expensive if damaged). I'm pretty sure you won't be able to see these pulses very well with a DVM--there only there for maybe a couple 100 milliseconds.

You can also check to make sure the home switch is working (use an ohm meter) and check also that the cam actuated switch is toggling as the cam moves by. It should make a clear clicking noise. You may have to bend the little switch arm up or down to make it actuate this switch properly. There is also a very small Allen screw that can do this but it's too hard to get to so I just gently bend the arm until I got smooth operation.

You may also have to power the machine down to force the "Power Up Restart" to do the homing algorithm.

Hope this helps. I also made a PCOOL wiring diagram if anybody needs it.

Tom

[dougtyler]

I just, in the last couple weeks, had to dis- assymble my p-cool unit, for a second time. This time I had to trace the problem back to the motor itself. It seems that the brushes had too much carbon buildup, if that's what you would call it. However, it kept the brushes from making a good contact to the armature. It's kind of a trick to get the motor apart. There are three small tabs that have to be bent back to remove the motor cover. Also, make sure you take a picture of the gearbox as soon as you seperate the housing. There are quite a few gears in there to keep up with. Good luck.

[JohnJW]

I got the 196 alarm, "Spigot failed to achieve command location after 2 attempts", on a 2006 VF2SS over the weekend. The sigot was stuck on position 5. I try resetting and powering the machine off and on, but couldn't get rid of the error. On power on, the machine will alarm out when pcool tries to home itself.

I searched online and found the work around by first changing setting 7 to allow edits to the parameter and then changing parameter 57 to disable pcool.

I took the covers off of pcool today. Measured the voltage going to the motor when I press the coolant up/down button. I did get a couple burst of ~ +/- 5V but no movement on the sigpot and then the 196 alarm.

I was in the process of trying to remove the pcool gear box but couldn't get one of the screws holding nozzle off. Feeling stumped, I got out a power supply to test the sigpot motor in situ. Strangely, I was able to move the sigpot back and forth by applying a little over +/- 5V.

Anyway, pcool seems to be working again. The only thing what I did to it was to accidentally move the spigot position manual by a couple notches when I was removing the cooland inlet hose.

[HelicopterJohn]

Hi John,

Does you Pcool System have a micro switch that rides in the notches of the cam? I have an older unit and the micro switch counts the detents as it opens and closes. It could have stuck in either an open or closed condition and that may have caused your issue.

On my unit there is a cam arm with a small set screw that is used to adjust the cam action. It only takes micro adjustments of that screw to get the unit to work correctly and totally mess it up.

Also, the micro switch could be getting ready to crap out. It is really hard to test it if it is malfunctioning on an incremental basis. If you should need to replace it I can give you a few tips on how it done.

John

[gizmo_454]

I have not personally had any problem with our PCOOL on our VF2SS yet, however, the circuit on the I/O board that controls the PCOOL, controls the barfeeder on Haas lathes. That we have had extensive problems with. All told, we had 6 I/O boards in our SL-10 so far to fix the problem. Last year alone we had 4 boards. I hope they got the issue fixed on the last revision board they used. Everything seems ok now for about 5 months. Never the less, you can try all the "home remedies" on here to fix the problem. They may or may not work, hopefully they do. A new I/O board ran us $1400.

Good luck!

Mike

[JohnJW]

Hi John,

Does you Pcool System have a micro switch that rides in the notches of the cam? I have an older unit and the micro switch counts the detents as it opens and closes. It could have stuck in either an open or closed condition and that may have caused your issue.

On my unit there is a cam arm with a small set screw that is used to adjust the cam action. It only takes micro adjustments of that screw to get the unit to work correctly and totally mess it up.

Also, the micro switch could be getting ready to crap out. It is really hard to test it if it is malfunctioning on an incremental basis. If you should need to replace it I can give you a few tips on how it done.

John

I have the older style pcool with a buldge on the bottom. The micro swith is on the upper left hand side actuated by a lever that rides on a cam with notches. The cam moves two notches for every nozzle up/down command. I am hoping it's just a momentary glitch, but luckily there's this forum to search for answers. Otherwise, I probably would have been stuck over the weekend and have to wait till today to call the local hfo and wait for a technician to solve the problem. Thanks guys.

[JohnJW]

196 spigot failure still occurs from time to time. I can fix it by opening up the p-cool cover, disconnecting the motor power wire, and apply voltage to the motor with a power supply just enough to move the motor back and forth.

However, the problem is fairly random and occurs at inopportune time, ie half way through a program.

Is there any way to find out which component is causing the problem? ie the mircoswitch, the motor or something else. . . hopefully not the io board. . .

[HelicopterJohn]

Hi John,

Take a look at this thread.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/haas_m...cool_help.html

John

[locash]

On a side note, there is a company in Florida selling brand new Pcool units on ebay, I just received one today and put it in my brand new 2011 VF3 (that I havent even run a job on yet, lol), works perfectly.

I think I paid $210 shipped for one, completely worth it, since Haas wanted $1795.00 for the option..

[JohnJW]

I did more checking and I think it is not the micro switch. I took the pcool cover off and manually click the microswitch with every coolant position adjustment but the motor doesn't turn. I then disconnect the pcool motor and applied ~5~6 vdc to cycle the coolant position and then reconnected the pcool motor and that seem to have solved the problem. What could cause the motor/gear mechanism to become momentarily stuck? There a sticker attached to the motor wiring specifying 69mA. Is the pcool motor current a parameter value that can be changed?

On a side note, I had to wait a long long long time for the VF-2SS to boot up tonight. Usually the logo screen shows and the software loading messages start scrolling on the bottom but not this time. I cycled the machine a few time, hard cycle the machine a couple times and it still got stuck on the logo screen. I sat down to write my complaint to the board. . .funny I usually read about other people's complaints I wonder what's the big deal. . lol. . anyway, the threat of public complaint worked. Before hitting send, the machine has booted up. Why did it take so long to boot?

thanks,

John