viper
Titanium
- Joined
- May 18, 2007
- Location
- nowhereville
One of the late 90s VMC has been having issues with limit switches and machine will not home. I knew the problem was around the plugs back by the way lube tank. Yesterday, it totally quit and by the way it was failing, I knew something was shorted so I pulled that cute little plug housing off the sheet metal and inspected. What I found was another horrible design that was an easy fix...
Basically, these plugs are retained in a sheet metal clip that is open on top. Over time, chips can accumulate on top of these plugs. Are they sealed? Well, NO! So the contacts inside are free to accept chips and eventually build a nice bridge or short.... 5min fix to remove that metal clip with all 3 plugs, blow them off, and let it hang so it cannot happen again... Obviously if they would have used sealed connectors or even sheet metal over the plugs, this would never be an issue.
I am confident that a tech would just see that a switch is not working and start running up that bill to replace crap that does not need replaced. After just blowing things out with air, we are all good. To be honest, now that I know the design, one could probably apply air without even removing the clip. 30 sec... Remember in your i/o table, a 1, is open, a 0 is closed. If you unplug a limit switch and it does NOT make the table a 1, your problem is NOT the limit switch itself..
Basically, these plugs are retained in a sheet metal clip that is open on top. Over time, chips can accumulate on top of these plugs. Are they sealed? Well, NO! So the contacts inside are free to accept chips and eventually build a nice bridge or short.... 5min fix to remove that metal clip with all 3 plugs, blow them off, and let it hang so it cannot happen again... Obviously if they would have used sealed connectors or even sheet metal over the plugs, this would never be an issue.
I am confident that a tech would just see that a switch is not working and start running up that bill to replace crap that does not need replaced. After just blowing things out with air, we are all good. To be honest, now that I know the design, one could probably apply air without even removing the clip. 30 sec... Remember in your i/o table, a 1, is open, a 0 is closed. If you unplug a limit switch and it does NOT make the table a 1, your problem is NOT the limit switch itself..
