Gildemeister Ctx400f Chuck Related Alarms

Hello,
I do not know what happened to the thread I started on Saturday.....
So I have to start all over again.
This is a nearly new machine with only about 1000 hrs.

We are experiencing problems setting the chuck. When closing it we are getting alarms which prevent the machine from starting-

To work, I have had to modify the parameter to tell the machine there is a manual chuck and have to restore it to operate the chuck and setting to manual chuck to let the machine work.

From what I have looked up and advised in this forum, There are basically three settings.
(1) Setting the chuck opearting pressure which would be illustrated on a Panel meter on the machine. Here we have a problem as if we set the pressure greater than 20bar, the power enable on the conrol would trip.

(2) There are two valves which monitor the pressure and correct me if I am wrong, will bring up alarms. The valve on the left is to adjust for a chuck with external clamping.
This will bring Alarm 2051 if improperly set. (somebody confirms this?)

(3) Also there are two sensors which control the stroke of the chuck. These will
bring two alarms if improperly set- The two sensors are set properly and the yellow diode will go off when the chuck opens or closes.

We are getting an alarm 2050 MAIN CHUCK FRONT LIMITATION REACHED

We have paid around with the sensors and the valve settings and nothing seems to work.
We are suspecting that the fact that the Valve will not allow pressure to exceed 20Bar is the culprit.

Somebody who owns a CTX400Fcan say what the pressure meter mustread to be in the normal range.

I appreciate any help- Desperte situation!!!!

Thanks in advance.

Sputnik,

Although I've operated CTX400's and 500's, I personally can't help you with your problem. I do, however, know a technician that should be able to help you. He worked for DMG for many, many years and now works almost exclusively on Gildemeister machines for his own business. This guy once correctly diagnosed a problem on our CTX500, and gave us the solution to fix it, while he was tanning himself on a beach in Florida! I notice that you are in Europe, but if your interested you can PM me and I'll give you his contact information.

What control do you have on your machine?

when you close your chuck
sensor no.2 should NOT be activated . If is activated it tels machine stop there is no piece!!!! you should move your sensor out off reach when you close chuck wirh workpiece. Sensor no.2 is only to stop machine if there is NOT pcs in the chuck.
That mean
your sensor no.1 make sure jaws is NOT open.
sensor no.2 make sure there is wpc in the jaws.
Only if you close without wpc your sensor should be ON.



!!! sensor 2 have to bi deactivated , than machine can start!!!
Also when you change collet to chuck you going oposite direction ... so maybe you MIXED your sensors.
i have to do same thing tomorow on my machine ... so hopefuli i will know more about .
p.s. maybe it is diferent on my machine

Thanks for joining the fray! it seems a simple task but is beating the daylight out of me. I have solved far worse problems but this is making me sick!

The Control is an 18T fanuc control.

I think you were right in saying that the close sensor must not be active as otherwise the machine would assume that there is no workpiece, so I made sure that the yellow led is not on when the chuck is closed.

Secondly, the sensors and their plug ins are in their rightful place.

When I close the chuck, I am getting two alarms;-
2051 main chuck position not defined
1022 main chuck front strok limitation fault. This 1022 would appear and then disappear.

I never thought this would be such a nightmare. I have 11 CNC`s and none of them gave me this!

any help appreciated.

You shouldn't have to move the sensor set the length of the draw tube by screwing the chuck sleeve in or out depending where you get the alarm. Do you have that tool I talk to you about in previous thread?

Robert

You also need to chuck a part either inside or outside or you will hit the limit switch. Tell the control if your chucking M28 internal M29 external chucking or change it in the parameter.I have Heidenhain control.

Robert

Sputnik

First of all if it's a Fanuc, then you most likely have an option to turn off the stroke checking of the chuck position.
IOW you can have chuck stroke check, where the "chuck-open" sensor and "chuck-closed" sensor both must be deactivated.
In this case the following logic applies:
"Chuck-open"=1 AND "chuck-closed"=0 <---- Chuck is fully open - no operation possible
"Chuck-open"=0 AND "chuck-closed"=1 <---- Chuck is fully closed - no op. possible
"chuck-open"=0 AND "chuck-closed"=0 <--- Chuck is within clamp limits - OK to operate

Now. Depending on the builder, this "Stroke-check" may be disabled, and the only criteria for operation is that "Chuck-Open" sensor be deactivated for OD clamping OR
"chuck-Closed" sensor be deactivated for ID clamping.
In my Mori this is definiately a builder-specific parameter and is available to turn on or off with only 2 buttonpushes.
The sensors however are still adjusted the same way, and are NOT TO BE MESSED WITH!!! just because of clamping pressure or bar diameter changes. In the now lost thread you've mentioned that you need to adjust them depending on bar diameter or clamping pressure. That is apparently a German invention to make your life a little more miserable.
On my machine there are 2 prox. switches. One is looking for the back end of the drawtube flange, the other is looking at the front edge of drawtube. When the drawtube is fully opened, the back sensor should be just "made-closed". A slight travel forward (say 1-2mm) of the drawtube should deactivate it.
Ditto for the front sensor except in reverse.
The drawtube travel distance between the 2 sensor's deactivation is your clamping range.
If your book tells you the valid clamping range, then you can pretty much decipher the length of which the drawtube must travel before disengaging each sensor.

However. You have mentioned pressure sensors and some other crap you must screw with, but I cannot help you there.

I normally run with no stroke check which is safe enough in most cases, and in some instances necessary for rough boring the jaws or collets.
See if you can turn that off and then you should get only one error either in the ID or the OD clamping mode.

To be honest with you, I agree with this crap design. I have other machines and work safe and well without this mess of settings.
I will have a look at the parameters lists and see if there is some way to disable.
One thing I did not mention is that the previos owner in its 1000 hours of work had these problems. The machine has a Collet chuck and I suspect maybe they changed them round and assembled them incorrectly, so the first thing I am going to do is take the chuck off and have a look at the assembly to see if anything is not to scratch. The tools somebody mentioned I do not have. I have a Berg Chuck fitted.
I suspect that the sensor which monitors the chuck close position is problematic.
I have another Gildemeister, a CTX200 with subspindle and it has two identical sensors and I am tempted to try and switch one to see if the alarm goes to the other machine.
We also have a leadwell machine, no chucl close monitoring crap or pressure checks- I think what I will spend some time in is trying to see if there are some parameters to disable them.

will keep you posted but anybdy has any idea please let me know.

have contacted DMG in Germany and waiting for their response.

I do not know do you have parameter to change when you exchange collet and chucks... if yes did you change it?
Another posibility is maybe you switch sensors..... it hapend one time to me.

Contacting DMG is smart move ...they know the best ...they are right place to ask
good luck.
On my machine seems chucks doesn`t work over 20 Bar ( pressure)

This CTX400F

I do not know if contacting DMG was the best idea.
The sensors are in place and every thing is OK.
Could somebody possibly owning a CTX400F machine wiht the same control Fanuc 18T, tell what the K Parameters stand for? apart form K0 and K2 which should be set for the type of chuck and operation.
Is there something which could have been assembled wrong and would give rise to these alarms.
DMg are replying with very stupid answers- They think that a Kid is runnng the machine.
What I do not know is, if somebody who owned the machine in its 1000 Hours of life, maybe played around with some paramater or to put it better, touched any parameter whic would give up these stupid alarms. This machine was at a local collage and it only worked 100 Hours. Spoke with the Technician there and he said that the machine always had this problem. There was a sucesssion of technicians and I suspect somebody at some time touched something which is causing the machine to behave in this way.
What could make the machine do this?
Anybody owns an identical machine and could send me a list of the parameters and the K ones such that I can cross check. This is virtually a new machine with 1000 hours.

??

Sputnik,

I'm curious if you ever found a solution for this problem. I hope no news has been good news?