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Milltronics Partner IV with Centurion V control

grampsbutler

Plastic
Joined
May 10, 2009
Location
San Diego, CA, USA
I am new to this forum, but I was wondering whether anyone had experience with a Milltronics Partner IV with Centurion V control. I bought the mill about a week ago in 'running' condition and am trying to get it going.

It seems to do a different thing each time I start it up. When I first turned it on it did not want to home in any direction. So I opened up the covers and manually adjusted pulleys to move the quill and table to a neutral middle possition. This made it so that the quill (Z axis) would home. Then I eventually managed to get it to home in all three Z, Y and X. But now it seems to move about 1/2 inch and then trips out in the X direction. I have tried it over and over and can't get it to repeat the home operation.

The one time that I managed to get it to home successfully it seemed to work fine. I can run programs jog the table and do most any operation with no problem but the sticking point is getting it to home.

Does any body have any idea what could be causing this? It seems to be a temperamental problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Graham
Intrepid Handcycles
 
It sounds like your machine isn'r smart enough to move off the home switches before heading back towards them. (I have one like this too, but not Milltronics.)

You said that when you manually moved the screws off the limits it homed fine. But if you shut it down and tried to rehome while sitting on the switches - it may move beyond the switches and run into either an overtravel switch or hard stop on one or more axis.

Just remember to take off the limits before homing. Usually not an issue in X so much, but Y and Z fer sure as the end of most progs will likely be Y home and Z home - but X in front of the door.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
It isn't moving beyond the limit switches nor is it hard stoping. My problem is getting it to go to the limit switch at all. Ocasionally it will do it, and then it runs fine.

No error codes when it gets stuck. It just trips something and finds itself in an emergency stop condition.
 
I had a Milltronics Lathe with a similar but different odd problem that I couldn't diagnose, and neither could customer support. It would just stop like an E stop. I was ready to send the CPU in for service and it turned out to be a microswitch that was full of coolant and crud and had a high resistance short. If you think it might be something like that, check all your switches with an ohmmeter.
 
Doo you have the air on?

I have seen a machine continualy stop doo to something like "air not on" or "Lube Low", or eny number of possibilities.

Even "Limit switch swamped" could be one as well... ;)

Maybe you wunna check the amps and see if they are actually "erroring out" or if it a control hold issue. (I assume there will be a "status" code on the amps?)


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
Lube low or no air will still let the machine home.
Partner 4, is this a knee mill? It was a running machine, you bought it, moved it, now it doesn't work, correct? It could be as OX and Mud suggested, the limit switches, could be a wire off, touching then falling off again or it's stuck. There is a way to see what is going on with the switches. You can change the display to diagnostics. Can't tell you right now what the value would be as I can't remember if they are normally open or closed. The display will say 1 or 0 for the value.
Dave
 
Thank you all for your help.

I have torn apart and tested the limit switches.... they test fine with the ohm meter, and are clean inside.

I am begining to suspect that somthing is up with the amp for the servo in the x direction.

Any other sugestions of things to try are welcome!

Thanks again

Graham
Intrepid Handcycles
 
Glad you finally decided to join us, Graham! I'm sure you will find this forum to be a very valuable resource. Keep us posted on the progress with your mill. Have you tried removing various plugs/cards/boards and re-seating them? Easy to do and might be worth a try. It'll be a great machine when it is all sorted out. Talk to you again soon.
 
What does the machine say for errors when it fails.

Error 450 is an emergency stop fault and is associated with the E-stop circuit. This comprises the overtravel switches and the big red E-stop button.

Error 449 is an axis drive fault and is associated with the drives. With this fault there should be a red light on one of the cards. Unless you have a system that uses the reset circuit to power the drives. If that's the case then the red light will go off as the power bleeds from the big blue resistor after the failure.

Dan
 
I'v had great luck with miltronics tech. dept. I had problems after I moved my ML 20 lathe and they spent a lot of time helping me sort it out at no charge. I went to their school, good value for the money.....
 
Try turning off the power to the servos, and turn the ballscrew by hand. It should move freely. If not, I would try replacing the ballscrew thrust bearings. The limit switch could also be the problem.
 
Im new to this stuff but I see that there is a lot of knowledge her that that i might be able to tap into. I an looking at buying a Milltronics Partner 1. I dont know much about them and i was wondering how are they to program or communicate with with a cad program, I Have BOBCAD and would like to have to two play well with each other,
 
It isn't moving beyond the limit switches nor is it hard stoping. My problem is getting it to go to the limit switch at all. Ocasionally it will do it, and then it runs fine.

No error codes when it gets stuck. It just trips something and finds itself in an emergency stop condition.

I had a tree mill that was retrofited with the milltronics centurion V that had a similar problem. try slowing down your feed over ride to 10 -20 % and see if it homes. Mine would work fine once it warmed up but it took a while before it would with any kind of fast feed. Obviously there is an underlying issue but this may allow you to run it.
 
I have run a CentV Partner 4, and now own one (unfortunately, in storage).

Have you contacted the Milltronics tech support guys? Email them with the serial number of the machine and the control box, and ask them what they think. May have to bend yourself over a bit to get the label off the box.

Pretty good bunch to deal with.

What kind of money do you have in it? Can you afford the single board computer upgrade(+/-$2K)

I'd take a close look at both the limit and home switches and their respective wiring. A poke and prod session around the terminal boards may be worthwhile too, to see if there are any loose connections.
Pull and re-seat the boards in the backplane and check the connectors to your motion control drives.
We only really had two problems with our work machine. Unfortunately, one of them was a blown circuit trace on the main simdisk board (close enough to the cost of the upgraded computer that were it my decision, it would have got the single board computer upgrade). The other was the death of the battery that kept the parameters alive (a $20 battery).
Mechanically, the X axis thrust bearings on ours would occasionally work it's way loose, and we would lose a few thou there until I pulled the pulley off and added some lockwire to the nut. It was supposed to be held by a bend tab on a washer, but it did out work out too well. The Z axis bolt, behind the ballscrew, was good for a tightening about once a year or so too.

The more I ran it, the more i liked it as a flexible, basic CNC mill. I found that you needed to put a bit of thought in to your tool planning, as the 5 inches of stroke of the Z axis will give you fits if you do not put your long tools in short holders, etc.

The tech support guys should be able to send you the conversational workbook too, so you can use that.

Cheers
Trev
 








 
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