1995 Cincinnati arrow

I have a 95 Cincinnati arrow with A2100 control and have had a slew of problems since Nov. I think all boards have been repaired, X axis drive and just got the Z axis drive back. Right before I sent the Z drive in I was getting a hard dragging noise in the Y axis while jogging to align. I removed all the way covers and manually greased the screw and started to jog in Y which doesn't seem to be helping but then I could not jog (using pendant) in Y+, Z+ or X+. I shut the machine down, powered back up and I could move in all directions except Z+ then X & Y followed. Any ideas on why 1: the jog stopped working and 2: what is causing all the noise and I'm also getting a bit of noise in the X+ the closer I get to the travel limits. Any help would be greatly appreciated. And if anybody knows of someone that will service this machine in Delaware that info would be great.

Thanks in advance
Scott

Try to describe noise a little better. You said draging but that could still be high or low pitched, so more like grinding, screaching, whining? Could be ball screws, thrust bearings, etc. Do you have serious backlash? Coolant in wires cause funny problems? Can you move with MDI?

lowCountryCamo said:

Try to describe noise a little better. You said draging but that could still be high or low pitched, so more like grinding, screaching, whining? Could be ball screws, thrust bearings, etc. Do you have serious backlash? Coolant in wires cause funny problems? Can you move with MDI?

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not a high pitched whining, more like a no lube hard rubbing noise. The ways have grease on them and this happened like overnight one day no noise then the next day a terrible dragging chatter like noise. I run the same part in plastic on this machine and haven't noticed any backlash and the machine doesn't get run much at all

Just solved this on my TreeVMC500 with the same control. After repairing innumerable things I thought it was, it turned out to be the breakout board for the Z-axis had a cold solder joint. I took all three boards out and resoldered all the traces. Been working like brand new ever since. PM me if you want my #; I'll give you the details.

Burt

You could have balls in the nut locked up. Different types of grease will cause it to harden. Especially if it is not used much. Putting grease on by hand does not help much as most have wipers on both sides that wipe it off. Can you grease with a pump? I have poured way oil in a grease gun then pump that in to loosen thing up. Then followed with the proper grease. I have also used compressed air to push the hard shit out.

Nami said:

Just solved this on my TreeVMC500 with the same control. After repairing innumerable things I thought it was, it turned out to be the breakout board for the Z-axis had a cold solder joint. I took all three boards out and resoldered all the traces. Been working like brand new ever since. PM me if you want my #; I'll give you the details.

Burt

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I'm assuming your referencing the problem with the axis not functioning on the pendant? I kinda of figured it was the pendant itself as I just had the X axis drive fixed in March. The table was drifting in X until it went off limits and I had to manually move the axis but then I had one error message after another. It seems that any board or drive that has a battery has had problems. But the pendant is one thing that has not had issues so I just figured since everything else has died this must be the next thing.

No, I'm talking about exactly what you're describing. It sounds like grinding ballscrews, or no lube in the trucks, or some other mechanical problem. Usually only happened on startup, once things got moving it would last all day without noise. Towards the end, it would flare up anytime.

There are three boards (one for each axis), that are notorious for cracking PCB boards and/or cold solder joints. I was going to buy them, but once I took one off and looked at it under the microscope, the problem was obvious.

Trace the larger cable on the servo packs and see if they go to a small stand-alone board. If so, that's the one I'm talking about.

Nami said:

No, I'm talking about exactly what you're describing. It sounds like grinding ballscrews, or no lube in the trucks, or some other mechanical problem. Usually only happened on startup, once things got moving it would last all day without noise. Towards the end, it would flare up anytime.

There are three boards (one for each axis), that are notorious for cracking PCB boards and/or cold solder joints. I was going to buy them, but once I took one off and looked at it under the microscope, the problem was obvious.

Trace the larger cable on the servo packs and see if they go to a small stand-alone board. If so, that's the one I'm talking about.

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I'll check that out but my noise doesn't go away and if I try to run the machine it shuts down as soon as a rapid in Y happens and I don't think that would effect the pendent functions, the hand wheel doesn't work at all and I can only jog in one direction in X, Y & Z or would it?

propman said:

I'm assuming your referencing the problem with the axis not functioning on the pendant? I kinda of figured it was the pendant itself as I just had the X axis drive fixed in March. The table was drifting in X until it went off limits and I had to manually move the axis but then I had one error message after another. It seems that any board or drive that has a battery has had problems. But the pendant is one thing that has not had issues so I just figured since everything else has died this must be the next thing.

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Well the cables look to go into the aluminum box where the hard drive etc are, I have had I believe all of those boards in for repair since november but I would agree that it is not mechanical as I can manually move the axis very easy and it moves smoothly too. Is that where the boards you speak of are located? I don't see any other boards in the main cabinet.

With so many boards going bad could you have a malfunctioning power supply? I wonder if something bleeding higher voltage/current spikes into the boards could damage them while seeming to operate normally. Have any of the bad boards shown burned components? Do you have an oscilloscope and the experience to use it safely on a hot electronics enclosure?

have you replaced your servo power cables? I have had them just give up the ghost before..... wierd symptoms... or swap x and y motors/ drives and see what it follows. could be a bad dv5 as well.

I'll get a pic tomorrow of what mine look like. Remember it's a Tree and not a Cincinnati, but they shared some/similar components if it's a 2100. Do you have Yaskawa servopacks?

I'm pretty sure it's somewhere along the encoder or power cable chain. My diagnosis on mine came about when I realized a heater in the electrical cabinet was needed to eliminate the problem, even in summer! There was apparently just enough heat to close a cold solder joint.

Well the fact that it has been over 90 in my shop for the past month I'm not sure about lack of heat being the problem and I hate to be ignorant but Wille what is dv5? I do think the pendant is shot as if I remove it from the holder I loose communication and I don't know if this event is connected with the very first problems I had with this machine several years ago but something happened which caused my power supply to die, the operating system board was damaged and the crt completely fried so I had to replace all and nobody could explain what happened. Power comes in thru a transformer and I would think if I was having supply spikes the PC power supply would go before anything else?

Here's the pic of my breakout boards. The connectors at the top go to the servopacks. Inside these plastic cases are simple PCB boards that connect the pin from the connector with the corresponding wire at the bottom. Basically a glorified terminal strip.

My shop was over 100 and it still happened, unless I put a space heater in the cabinet and let it run on high for an hour. Before/while aligning the machine, I believe the control limits the current/voltage so that it doesn't ram the table or Z into a hard stop. Once I got it to align, it wasn't usually a problem unless I turned the machine off.

The 1995 arrow 2100's should have had kollmorgen drives. A PSR4, a VFS5 spindle drive, and (3) bds4 servo drives. The drives are much more than a card. The dv5 is the servo drive interface card in the silver control assembly- id's by its 5 ports ( 4 axes plus spindle) of db15( maybe db9) to interface with the drives.

The control commands the dv5, which then converts control command into an analog 0-10VDC speed signal that goes to the drive, which has its own microprocessor and translates that out to the motor.

I have had heat an humidity affect things, I have had axis motor power cables suddenly stop working, I have had the clips that connect to c1, c2, and c3 on the servo drive face get weak and cause intermittents. Case in point - a Sabre 1500- Its been nusiance S axis alarms for a year or so but finally got to the point it was past nuisance.
swapped axis drives around
swapped spindle drives
swapped psr4's
changed the control power supply
went through checking all the lugs/ motor connection screws and the dc bus screws
replaced all the axis and spindle motor power cable motor connections, ohmed out the cables
replaced all the axis and spindle encoder/ resolver cable motor connections, ohmed out the cables
started going through replacing connectors on the face of the individual drives.. what I attribute it to was a .40 connector shell and about 10 .02 internal pin connectors on a c3 connector that would drop for 1/8 of a millisecond and come back....

In your shoes I would do 2 things:
1. see if its moving accurate and smooth
2. run it hard see if it comes out of it
3. start through the list above if you can't do 1 and 2

How can I manually jog the Z axis, I can't do much of anything as the Z axis is overtraveled in the minus direction and using the pendant I have lost the Z plus direction move, the X plus and the Y minus and I need to move the Z axis off the limit so I can clear the alarm.

propman said:

How can I manually jog the Z axis, I can't do much of anything as the Z axis is overtraveled in the minus direction and using the pendant I have lost the Z plus direction move, the X plus and the Y minus and I need to move the Z axis off the limit so I can clear the alarm.

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Then take off the motor move z axis manually so move pretty easy

I was hoping that there was an easier way, it's not just going to freefall when the motor is disconnected I hope.

It WILL free fall if you disconnect the Z motor!

Look at the prompt at the bottom of the screen.
It usually tells you what to do.

If you need to power back on after an over travel, then you:
[DATA RESET]
[ALIGN]
[F1]
[DATA RESET]

[ GREEN POWER ON BUTTON] << - - Hold on while jogging axis off of stop.
JOG while holding [ GREEN POWER ON BUTTON] on.

After jogging off over travel, align axes as normal.

If not that, then you need a higher power for help.

on my Tree you hold down the control key on the pendant while hitting the jog button.