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Haas Lathe Turret Fault

IronReb

Stainless
Joined
May 26, 2011
Location
Shreveport/Louisiana USA
Hope some one can help narrow down this problem.The machine is a 1999 Haas SL30.About a month ago everything was fine and dandy then out of the blue in the middle of the day I got a turret fault alarm,noticed that when the turret indexes to the next position it takes a bit longer for the turret to lock into position,if it takes a bit to long that when the turret fault alarm pops up.

After about 20 minutes of OHH Crap it cleared up and ran fine till this last week.Machine will run fine all day then out of the blue the same problem comes back,the turret will index to the next position and stall before locking into place which pops the alarm.I can go around to the back of the machine and manually work the solenoid and get her to work enough to do my job but it's still lagging on locking the turret,just not enough to pop an alarm and has got pretty regular now.

On a side note,the A axis (turret index motor) will hummm ever so often and the A axis load meter flickers load of 3-6%.I can index turret and stop that for a bit,but it will still come back from time to time.Had a local repair guy look at it today and he's thinking it's something with the A axis encoder causing it to error on me.The guy is a good mechanic but has never been into a Haas turret so I am kinda worried about letting him guess his way into it.

Any Haas users ever have this issue?

One more thing with this model,about every six months or so I have to untighten the shcs holding the turret on and realign the tool pockets to X axis center line by .006"-.010" to keep my tools on center line,is that normal?
 
The turret is pushed away from the coupling with die springs. They rust through and break. The turret has to be removed to replace them. I would talk it over with a Haas service tech.
 
To be clear,it's an intermittent problem.Friday it ran perfect till about 2 O'Clock when I went to unload a truck,when I came back it wouldn't cycle tool changes again.I pushed the little button on top of solenoid that locks and unlocks the turret several times,that got it to work enough not to alarm out for the rest of the day.Fired it up yesterday morning to let a local tech guy look at it and the freaking thing ran perfect again.
 
To be clear,it's an intermittent problem.Friday it ran perfect till about 2 O'Clock when I went to unload a truck,when I came back it wouldn't cycle tool changes again.I pushed the little button on top of solenoid that locks and unlocks the turret several times,that got it to work enough not to alarm out for the rest of the day.Fired it up yesterday morning to let a local tech guy look at it and the freaking thing ran perfect again.

Call your local Haas Factory Outlet and describe your problem to service.

Though I can not speak for your HFO, the one here in the Northeast is OUTSTANDING at helping over the phone. I have had quite a few problems solved over the years just by talking with the service tech, and also saved valuable down time by them telling me to have a service call put in because it was on its way down.

Better to "plan" on getting it fixed now before it's sitting there dead in the water for a few days waiting for a service tech to become available.

Later,
Russ
 
I had the same problem with mine, there is a pneumatic cylinder, that actuates a cam to push the turret out, my guess is the solenoid valve is getting stuck, I didn't do much to get mine running again, might have put a little WD40 in the air line and cycled it.
 
To answer your other question about having to loosen the turret to adjust it every now and then, no, that's not normal. Here again, you better talk to Haas.
I don't know how old this machine is, but when those die springs break, the machine can keep running for quite a while yet. Then the problems start intermittently. Every once in a while, a piece of die spring will get into something that causes a problem, possibly even the fault that you're getting. When you go over to reset the machine, that little piece of die spring then might fall out of the way, and machine runs fine again.

If you get Haas out there to do a turret assembly rebuild, (not nearly as scary as it sounds), that just might fix both problems that you're seeing.
 
Is that the 2000 vintage SL XX series or the older type??
I will check my turret and see if the center line is off too.
 
I had a similar problem on my SL10. It turned out to be the large o-ring that seals the turret. Coolant swelled up the o-ring and it was binding the turret when it rotated. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it would alarm. I had the tech replace the die springs and the thrust bearing while he was in there. We also changed the oil for the turret.

The tech told me if the die springs were broke the turret would not push away enough and when the turret rotates the curvic coupling would make a clunking sound as the two halves hit each other. This might be the reason you need to adjust your turret all the time.

Good luck!
 
Thanks for the reply folks.My boss HATES calling Haas,it burns his arse to pay Haas driving time from Mississippi to west Louisiana.

Will give all the info to our local tech guy who has never been into a Hass turret and see what happens.Then when it's totally FUBARed maybe we can get Haas to come and fix it right.
 
Springs

I'd give it about an 80% chance its the springs, if it is, the problem will continue to get worse. Can you hear little crunchy sounds as the turret pulls back in? Does it pull straight back in or does it turn a little as it moves? It isn't a big job to replace the springs and re-align the turret, an hour or two. I would try the WD40 in the air line first, its easy and works if a sticky solinoid is at fault. Good luck
 
Thanks for the reply folks.My boss HATES calling Haas,it burns his arse to pay Haas driving time from Mississippi to west Louisiana.

Will give all the info to our local tech guy who has never been into a Hass turret and see what happens.Then when it's totally FUBARed maybe we can get Haas to come and fix it right.

The problem with using a local guy is.....if he needs parts, you're down for another day waiting for them to come in that will in all likelihood need to be overnighted to have for the next morning, plus another service charge for the tech to come back and fix it.

Haas on the other hand will most likely have the part/parts right on the van and have you up and running in no time flat. It has always been the case for me, and my machine is a 1992!


Later,
Russ
 
call Haas

Call Haas, they can send you a procedure to do it yourself, it's not hard , doesn't require a tech. The only tough part is getting everything back together, but I have a trick to help. Take some crazy glue and stick the key and the thrust bearing races in their respective places and a little grease to hold the thrust bearing and o-ring in place during reassembly. Works liks a charm.
 
Gonna try the WD40 first thing in the morning.I completely agree Wrustle but you have to understand,the owner will spend a $1 to save 10 cents.He signs my paycheck every week so I keep my head down with mouth shut and butt and elbows in the air..
 
Gonna try the WD40 first thing in the morning.I completely agree Wrustle but you have to understand,the owner will spend a $1 to save 10 cents.He signs my paycheck every week so I keep my head down with mouth shut and butt and elbows in the air..


Totally understand,.......been there, done that..............and my name IS the one on the front door. ;)

We all learn though........some just take longer than others! :D

Best Regards,
Russ
 
Thanks for the reply folks.My boss HATES calling Haas,it burns his arse to pay Haas driving time from Mississippi to west Louisiana.

Will give all the info to our local tech guy who has never been into a Hass turret and see what happens.Then when it's totally FUBARed maybe we can get Haas to come and fix it right.


They are actually, not that complicated. Your local guy should be able to help ya out.
 
The problem on our older HL2 was the air solenoid was getting water in it causing it stick sometimes.

I replaced it with a new Mac valve and it works perfect.
 
Turret fault

That exact problem happened with my 2007 sl20. The tech came in and told me that it's not the springs because he did see the action of the push and pull in of the turret. We replaced a celenoid and that simply fixed the problem. If you need to run/finish the job and can't afford the down time there is a way to extend the allowed delay time which is in your parameters. It's in terms of seconds and once the control sees the turret tacking longer than the given or default allowed time in the parameter settings then the machine will alarm out. I can't remember which parameter it is now cuz I'm at home but if you PM me I can look at it in the morning and tell you how u can extend this time until u fix your celinoid. You are basically allowing the turret longer time to index, which as I understand it will but it doesn't before the alarm comes. I think but I'm not a 100% sure I tripled this parameter value and was not getting alarms. Although it was evident that the turret was tacking more than the usual time to index. Also if you are getting a twist before it pulls then u might need to adjust or allign it a bit. The celenoid was not expensive. If I'm not mistaking it was under a hundred but I could be wrong this was last year. I replaced it myself. Good luck and hope this temporary trick fix will get u through the job.
Al.
 
Thanks for the info Zcapo.Was wondering if I changed the parameter values would it a quick fix.

I ordered the solenoid from Haas ($150) and tried to put it on my self which I have replaced before.Last one was an exact match so all I had to do was unscrew the wire connector from top of the old one and into the new one but that was several years ago.The new one is different so I have had to follow the wiring harness all the way down into the machine,I dropped the bracket that the solenoid is attached to (along with all the other crap!!) and discovered there are WAY TO MANY wires involved to just to get to the plug.I'm a machinist not a CNC tech,I aint about to dig into all that crap and mess up something costing the company more $ because my stupid ass should have left it alone.

Final note on it,I disconnected the air supply right at the solenoid and filled it with WD-40 like another poster suggested...WORKES PERFECTLY now.

Next problem is explaining why I spent $150 before trying a simple fix :(
 
Well it will get you through the job until you fix the problem. Changing the time value in the parameter will not fix the problem, as said above it will only allow the turret more time to index. Now this is provided the turret does index, but with a delay, due to the solenoid problem. But hey I didn't know about the WD40, and this is something I learned from you. So thank you. Now I know what to do next time this should happen, and frankly this is a more economical choice. Although I get the idea that on my machine (2007 SL20), the solenoid is easier to get to. Thanks for the info.
:cheers:
 








 
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