Here is an update on my ongoing saga of my Moog MHP b-22 mill that uses the Hydrapath III controller.


With the help of many people in this forum, I was finally able to start enjoying using my mill. I was even able to make a few things for my wife, so now she does not think it is a complete hunk of junk, it was upgraded to just junk status.

Anyway three weeks ago, I was playing around engraving some pictures on a chunk of aluminum. I was using a V groove cutter and everything was turning out really nice. The detail was better than I expected, and my wife was starting to get more ideas in her head that she wanted me to do. But as always, I got really busy with work, so the mill was left unused for 3 weeks while I had to goto work.

Tonight I had to make 50 small plates that needed to be notched, it would have been easy for the MHP to do, and it might even have increased it's value in my wife's eyes, but noooo the Grimlands had to show their evil heads!!

So here is what happened.

I turned the machine on, and tried to home all the axis. As soon as the Y started to move, the mill faulted with a following error. So I thought the gibs and ways were dry, so i ran the oiler for 20 minutes, and turned the speed way down.

When I tried to home it a second time, it faulted the same way. As soon as Y would move, it would fault.

So I tried to jog the Y axis. I would press the Y+ button, and the axis started to move, but would not stop. At whatever speed the controller comanded the axis to move, the speed stayed constant untill I e-stopped the machine. Nothing else would stop the movement of the y axis.

I started to watch the digial read outs on the screen, and they were only increasing or decreasing encoder counts while i was pressing the job button. As soon as I released the job button, the read outs stopped counting, but the axis continued to move.

Here is what I have tried so far-

I swapped the x and y sero drive, and the fault continued. I reseated all the boards (this has helped in the past), still the same problems. I also removed the encoder cable connector at the encoder end, and the same runaway condition.


I am thinking the encoder or cable is bad. What do you think?

Should I physically swap the x and y encoders, and see if the problems follow the encoder?
am I going to open another can of worms if I physically swap the encoders?


any other suggestions?

Do encoders just die all the sudden, or is it a gradual process?



Thanks for all the help and suggestions



Steve Shelton