SL10: Turret Unlock Fault and water problems in air lines

Alright, so since getting our SL10 we've been having major problems with water in our air lines. (never had to have the compressor run continuously before now)

Up until now it has not been a big issue.....and we've been just draining from the bottom of the air compressor.

So today I come in and fire up the machine and let it run.

Alarms out. Alarm message 113: Turret Unlock Fault

Got this alarm about five times over the course of 15 minutes......

I have read this is probably due to water in the turret air cylinder. Makes sense to me.

So, couple of questions now. I have the back of the machine opened up....I was hoping I could simply drain the water out somehow. But I don't see how or where.

The machine does have an inline air filter where the line gets connected to the machine. This will occasionally spit water out from the bottom of it. Is there a way to drain it completely? There is what appears to be a plastic screw on the bottom of it(where the water spits out). But when I attempted to loosen it I could only go so far......and it did not seem any pressure was being releived while I loosened it.

So is there a way to drain the inline filter? Is that filter even catching water?

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...

Well, I figured out how to empty the water trap finally. What a stupid design.

All water has been cleared from all of the machine's airlines.

No dice. Still getting the alarm.

Guess I'm going to be calling Haas on Monday.

Hope this isn't going to be a prelude to the machine's future performance........

Besides just draining the water by sticking something up into that little valve you may want to take the filter apart and clean it out. You unscrew the clamp ring then unscrew the element, white cup still remaining. I wash that with some soap and water, blow it out from the inside so you get full air flow thu it. Put it all back together and see how she runs. I was also told by a Haas Tech to make sure you have enough pressure in the line and at the regulator otherwise the machine gets tempermental. He had me bump my line pressure up to a bit over 100psi and increased the reg pressure to 95psi.

You may want to see if the turret is coming out far enough, M43, I believe it is supposed to come out .150 before rotating. If it is not coming out far enough that may be your problem, air pressure, springs (behind turret may be shot, mine rusted up and crumbled apart) 0-ring around turret hanging up or piston hanging up. If you are getting the right turret throw it may be the proximity switch gone bad or out of adjustment.

This machine was bought brand new less than six months ago.

Is it possible for the springs to go so soon? Also with the turret coming out .150......if it's been fine up until now, is that something that could change over time?

(hope those aren't stupid questions......I'm still really new to inner workings of CNCs)

PhoenixTool said:

This machine was bought brand new less than six months ago.

Is it possible for the springs to go so soon? Also with the turret coming out .150......if it's been fine up until now, is that something that could change over time?

(hope those aren't stupid questions......I'm still really new to inner workings of CNCs)

Click to expand...

No question is stupid.

Is it possible the springs went so soon, yeah but I'm thinking along your lines since the machine is so new, that it is unlikley.

The turret not coming out far enough can change. What generates the alarm is one of three things, the turret is not coming out far enough, the turret is not coming out fast enough or the switchs that verify turret movement are out of position or faulty.

More often then not for me the alarm is due to bad air pressure. Sometimes due to low pressure at the compressor other times because of dirty Air filters.

6 months, can you try for a warrantee call.

I had the exact same problem in my HL1BB after I installed our Intergex 200-IVS. Our piston compressor ran non-stop trying to keep up with the air demands of the positive pressure requirements on that machine. Naturally water started accumulating in all the moisture traps in every machine in the shop. Moisture was a real problem in many pneumatic cylinders since it can make it past the machines main condensate filter. The turret unlock pneumatic cycliner in our Haas lathe ended up full of water, which initially slowed down the ability to index the turret until it finally wouldn't even work any more. the solution was to remove the back cover, and reomove the air lines from the cylinder itself and blow it out with a separate air line. Ulitmately I added a screw compresser with a dryer, and now I am moisture and problem free...

When the turret indexes it is visibly very sluggish and rotates slowly.

I'm waiting on the service people to get back to me still(two to three day wait )... Lots of broken Haas around here I guess..... :/

I don't think air pressure is the problem.....unless the gauge on the machine is messed up I get 110psi.

There really wasn't all that much water in the trap when emptied it....... I did not disconnect the lines to the turret air cylinder though. Maybe I'll give that a try today.

As for checking switches...... way out of my league at the moment.

Thanks for all the input guys. I'll let you all know how this turns out.

Sluggish and slowly...no clunk as it rotates?

Sluggish and slow without a clunk, I would take a guess the o-ring is binding in the turret. I'd hate to think servo.

Two to Three day wait for service...I'm thinking call the factory, Haas advertises service, service, service find out why you have to wait so long. They have good tech support at the factory too. Maybe they can walk you thru a diagnoses so if you do need a service call at least you can make sure they have the correct parts. Twice I had to wait an extra day because the service guy did not have another turret O-Ring with him.

Good luck, let us know how you make out.

PHX: sorry to hear about your issues.

Going forward, I would recomend putting a refrigerated air dryer on your compressor. We had sticking tool changer issues on our VF5 after about 6 months using a dessicant filter on the line. A refrigerated dryer made the issues go away.

Before we got the dryer, we found a bit of air tool oil in the line would give us some temporary relief.

I think that most long term Haas owners would agree that these machines need bone dry air. Any condensation at all is going the cause havoc.

Back up and running!

Turned out it was the turret clamp/unclamp proximity switches.

They were set to far off center, right from the factory, and after months of continuous run time one of them became loose and caused the alarm.

Thanks again to everyone who replied and shared their input into my situation...... appreciate it allot.

On a side note, I think I will be investing in one of those refrigerated line dryers. Hopefully this will help avoid possible future issues with water in-line.

Xcellent news, love it when it is a simple fix!

Thanks for letting us know.

I also work with this TL 1 with a turret and i also have thoose problems with the faults and water we had several technicians come and check it out it seems that they just switch the cpu's filter in the software dont know what it is but kind of helped unfortunately I still get the alarm but what i do know is put it at
5% before it does the tool change (MDI turret fwd 5 % before i run it also works)

we have had a few problems on our VF2 in the past,the air regulator should automatiticly dump the water out, got a Dryer installed on our compressor and everything has been fine since, glad your sorted