Robodrill troubleshooting: first start up

Hey guys,

We just got our 2004 Fanuc Robodrill T21iBL to power up today: used an American Rotary panel to make a converter, which seems to work fine. Otherwise, I have a few error messages that I’m having some trouble troubleshooting.

I only have the operators manual, and I probably wouldn’t make too much head way on this by myself, even with a mAintenance manual.

First alarm: 1003 emergency stop. The E-stop isn’t pressed in, and I heard someone mentioned on another thread that it could be thermal overloading. Thing is, I haven’t moved any of the axes, and we just turned it on today.
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Next is a door lock alarm: 2001. We closed the door and even locked the button in place, but we still get this alarm. This might just be me needing to figure out how this door lock was set up in the software.

2002 is that air pressure is low: every time I go to hook up the air, 100% of it spits out the other end of a solenoid. No clue why this is. My only theory is that maybe we need another regulator keeping it at 90psi, but it has a regulator so I still think it’s something t else.

Please let me know if you’ve seen any of these simple issues, as more than likely it’s operator error.

Sounds like you've got some basic troubleshooting on your hands.

Doubtful the E-Stop is an overload. The E-Stop circuit is just a basic series circuit with all the E-stops daisy chained together. Open the chain anywhere and you get an alarm. Just like old Christmas tree lights. Easiest thing to do, especially as it seems you have only one to deal with, is get to the back of the switch and short the two wires together. If it clears your alarm you have a bad switch. If not you could have a bad connection at a terminal block somewhere in the control or magnetics cabinet. It's slightly possible you may have to hit Reset or the control Power On button after clearing the E-Stop.

The door alarm I can't offer anything. The low air pressure sounds like you need to replace or repair the regulator, the solenoid, or both.

Your problems sound minor. A little common sense and digging around should have you running soon I'm betting.

A call to the manufacturer about the door alarm might be in store too.

I was really stinkin tired when I wrote that, it's been a long week.

Just peeked at the operators manual. I'm going to do exactly as you said and short the switch.

I think this machine at one point had an automatic door option, which has been ripped out. There's a procedure in the manual to check the parameters so you can bypass the requirement, but it might take some fiddling.

Last, the diagram for the air panel on the back seems a bit different than the one I have. I'm wondering if the fella who had it last had a vacuum clamp and took the whole thing without plugging the input. I might get lucky if I just block it, but we'll see.

I'm headed over to give it a shot.

I’m 90% sure you’re right, and I’m glad you’d mentioned it. The lock still registers when the key goes in and out, but the switch won’t engage. I ordered another off eBay just to test it.

I'm beating my head on the wall over this...

Air is fine now, I reset the coolant pump operating time, so all that is left is the E-stop and the door lock.

I replaced the door lock to no avail; same problem. I've got the lock mechanism apart, and when the machine is off, it locks the key from pulling out. When you turn the machine on, it opens up as soon as the E-stop hits. This tells me that the mechanical part of the door lock seems fine.

I don't have an electrical manual yet. There's a few glimpses in the operators manual, so I know XT3 has the external interfaces; You hit the E-stop, and XT3-1 to XT3-2 opens. There's a few other pairs of connections that have a bit of voltage and resistance, but without knowing which is which, it doesn't do me much good.

My only guess is that something the previous owner had hooked up had an E-stop on it, and now that it's gone, the circuit is open. It's just a matter of figuring out where it was so I can jump it. First theory is the 5th axis. It's sitting on my floor waiting to be installed, and I'd say the E-stop was from not having the clamps read as shut on each axis, but the error would say so I'd think...

Anyways. Next theory is maybe they used a vacuum chuck, and the system had an E-stop condition with loss of vacuum. Again, no clue which pins this would have hooked into.

Last is operator error. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong...

I'll call Methods on Monday.

Hey Thunderstruck, (You might get some use out of the general trouble shooting concept I wrote about below, but I'm thinking you'll have to ignore the specifics. I saw your XT3 in your last post and thought you were on a Mori while forgetting you're on a Robodrill. Major brain fart on my part. Hopefully there is something useful, but otherwise... sorry.)

I think you're totally on the right track with the E-stop chain being broken by the missing 5th axis. I don't have a scanner, but here is a picture of the E-Stop circuit on my Mori. All the connections seem to be on XT3 and XT8 which are the two main DIN rail strips in your magnetics cabinet. Things labeled XS.XP320 and the likes, represent the Harting peripheral device connectors likely on the bottom of your magnetics cabinet. XS being "Socket" and XP being "plug." OPE box represents your main control panel. You can see that it's just a big daisy chain through the whole damn machine and peripherals. Looks like the odd numbers connect to the next odd number and even to even. The small number in parenthesis are the terminal numbers on the DIN rails. The (S.NO.73) in the far upper left corner is a reverence to the following page 73 which shows the safety interlock and and relay board. Not likely you'll need to go that far.

I did a ground up on my Mori pallet machine and had to lie to the computer in a dozen places so it wouldn't alarm out as I tore the thing apart. Many of those shorts I had to devise were shorting out E-Stop connections that weren't there anymore. Having the manuals around made that possible. You'd likely have this fixed days ago if you had yours. A lot of those fixes ended up being simple little shorting wires.

Anyway... you're on the right track, especially that it's letting you open doors. Meaning it knows you're trying to get inside the machine to fix something.

Dave

Just wanted to add, (more potentially useless information) that the couple pages following the pictured one also relate to the door interlock devices, so even more confirmation that you're on the right track with the E-Stop circuit.

Just had an idea Thunderstruck. Looks like there are two separate E-Stop strings running through the machine. (I think maybe the even numbers are outgoing and odd the return of one big series chain?) I say, turn off the power at the main disconnect on the wall, as there is 220 live in orange wires in the machine near/on the door at all times, even with the switch off. Make sure all E-stop buttons are pulled out or not activated, poke your head into your magnetics cabinet and find XT3 and XT8, take out an ohm meter and starting with the lowest even and/or odd number, test for continuity between connections. Leave one probe on the lowest number, and continue to move the second probe upward number wise. The wires are all labeled so look for EMG prefixed ones. If I remember right, many if not all of mine are right next to each other on the DIN rails.

So say as you're going along you finally find an open between your home probe point EMG2 and EMG16, that will mean you need a jumper between EMG14 and EMG16. Follow? I think this is a functional test procedure.

Good luck.
Dave

Many thanks guys, we fixed it!

Barbter was very helpful throughout. Turns out I was looking at the drawing backwards: I bridged 2 to 4 and 1 to 3 on the XT3 buss, which did nothing whatsoever. Adding more shorts above just burned the fuse. Looking at the right side of the drawing instead of the left meant I needed to simple short 1 and 2. E-stop went away and the machine moves freely! Mike from Methods Machine started to walk me through things beyond what my rock-eating mentality could handle, and I almost had a tech there, but it's fixed all the same now.

I still have yet to operate the tool changer, which has me a bit scared; I had to pull the z-axis motor off to fit it in the building. I'm 100% sure that the motor is on in the exact same spot when I pulled it off, and everything is torqued down. My fear is about the motor mount itself; I have no way of knowing if it rotated a few thou, and without the option to zero the machine, I'm not 100% sure it's going to line up perfectly to make a tool change.

I really really really really don't want to crash the tool changer. I'm pretty confident there's no way to slow the tool changer down, but is there any way to check the Z-position to be sure it's going to complete a tool change smoothly?

After that, the next big project is adding probing, then getting the 5-axis table back on.

regarding tool change slowdown:

Your machine MIGHT be different, but our 1997 robodrill's tool changes can be slowed down by turning down the rapid overrides. it goes super slow when at 1%.

Possible yours is like that too. if not, it is probably possible with a setting.

Also, if you go into tool changer maintenance mode, it should slow down there as well.

dandrummerman21 said:

regarding tool change slowdown:

Your machine MIGHT be different, but our 1997 robodrill's tool changes can be slowed down by turning down the rapid overrides. it goes super slow when at 1%.

Possible yours is like that too. if not, it is probably possible with a setting.

Also, if you go into tool changer maintenance mode, it should slow down there as well.

Click to expand...

That worked perfectly! I've used chain machines where there usually isn't a way to slow the tool change down, so this is a pleasant surprise. Works like a charm.

I might try and install tool probing this weekend and run the first job. Then I'm on hiatus for a month.

I'm back from my hiatus!

So... being I've got the attention of robodrill users. I found an ethernet port in the electrical cabinet, and I found the section in the manual about the embedded ethernet connection setup.

My question is: Can I sent programs over ethernet through this connection? If not, what the heck is it for? I have everything set up for RS232, but I need to steal the software to perform the transfer. If I can do it through ethernet, I'll start there first before investing in a program.