A little Help with an old Anilam Crusader M control

Hello,

I recently purchased an old Acra mill with an Anilam Crusader M control (3 Axis). Everything seems in good shape and the control seems to work fine. So far we have machined a few relatively complex plates. I have the control sending and receiving programs from a laptop - all of which are programmed at the control thus far.

My problem is with holding zero on the Z axis. We set X, Y, Z zero then start setting the tool offsets. Somewhere in moving around we go to start the program and Z zero will change. Sometimes way off, sometimes .300 off. I figured that somewhere along the line we were switching tool offsets and maybe then resetting zero on the wrong tool offset. But we just ran one part, 4 tools all worked fine. moved around a little to put the next part on (same program) and next thing you know Z is all the way up and reading -2.2289 its driving us mad... its like if we turn our back on the machine z changes. never had an issue with the X or Y changing.

Any advice on this old machine and finicky control would be appreciated.

Thank you
clint

I had one of those years ago. Mine would do the same thing. It was as if the entire Z axis would shift when the servos kicked on. Not all the time, but I would occasionally hear it kind of make a thunk noise and Z would shift. It's been many years ago, but I think it had something to do with how the Z servo would disengage to allow manual drilling with the quill.

Your Z axis encoder could be misaligned, contaminated or worn out. Skipped encoder counts would cause random position jumps like that. Is there a way to disengage servo and move quill by hand while monitoring its position? If you can replicate the error manually, then encoder is very likely to blame. I would check the mounting and alignment first, then try to clean it following proper procedure.

Talk to Jerry, he can get you setup. 716-490-1462.

Jon

Thank you, I believe I talked to Jerry looking for a tape for this machine. I'll double check the Z encoder, and pay closer attention.

thanks for the advise. I'll post back if I learn anything.
cheers

If there are no mechanical issues with the z axis, check the encoder coupling.