Supermax max3 mechanical and atc problems.

At work we have a 1990s (not sure the exact year) supermax max3 mill with an fanuc om control. Somewhat recently, I was in the middle of a tool change when I hit the reset button. Ever since then, the control gives an alarm for tool 3 (1008, I think. I'll check on Monday). I heard this has something to do with the tool number not matching the pocket number in the parameters but I'm unsure.

The machine is also out of tram in both directions. Front to back in not awful but can make facing operations difficult. Left to right, is pretty bad meaning I can only make a cut in one direction and still have acceptable surface finish. Does this need to be fixed mechanically or in the control? How would this be dealt with?

Lastly, the sprindle has some kind of problem preventing us from running it over about 1,000 rpm without making a lot of noise. We are fairly certain the bearings are bad but is there, potentially, another cause?


Ultimately, I'd like to find copies of all the manuals (I've heard there are three main ones: electrical, ladder, and maintenance/operators) the only paperwork we have on this machine is the brochure, it talks about the max1 and max3 machines.

If anymore information is needed, please let me know. These problems are driving me crazy and I'm the only one at work who cares enough to look for solutions.

Supermax had a problem with the ways on a few of the later machines which caused the axis to be uneven. we had one of them. it had something to do with the oil holes being in the wrong place and wearing out the turcite faster. to fix it we just cut a sub plate used it for 6 years and sold it. great machine and repeated.
y axis to top of table was the one out on our machine it was like .045 from front to back. yes it was horrible but quiet and never had issues when we made the subplate. DONT cut that table flat

also make sure you level that machine perfectly off the ways NOT the table, then check for sqaurnes on the colum that will effect what your describing as well. Parts are still avail through ycm even the old parts and they still make parts but it takes 1-2 months. they gave us the prints for a few things and we made our own.
If I recall supermax gave them out free if you needed them(years ago) it was an electronic copy.

Oh yeah as far as your face mill.
your drawbar is mostly likely bad. that machine uses a collet type drawbar clamp also. parts can be ordered from yci. collet was around a couple hundred and bevilles were 100 give or take a few bucks for the set.

Hi PMK,

I have a 96-97 Supermax 3 and still do after 15 years. I rebuilt it from the ground up so I've seen every single part. Delw is right about turcite wear problems. The turcite on the X axis ways was toast when I got the machine. Years after the first turcite rebuild the rear X axis turcite peeled out again. I had a different guy re-do it and 3 months later it was out again. I thought this guy didn't know what he was doing when I was watching him install it. Sort of blew my mind how a guy with 40 years in the machine rebuild business and nearly ready to retire broke every rule in the book about turcite installation. How that is possible and still in business is beyond me. I even sent Richard King some pics of the scrapping job (if you can even call it that) and he was as blown away by it as I was. I insisted the guy do more the 2nd time. But I digress. What I did do was change the rear X axis way oil meter nipple located in the distribution manifold inside the saddle from a #2 to a #3. Plus I always go back to the auto oiler before running the machine and give it a pump or two before starting, especially if the machine has set for awhile.

Part of your tram problems might be your turcite is peeling out. Run your table all the way in X to both sides. Stick yourself through the side windows and look at the underside of your table at the X axis ways. A mirror can aid in this. Part of the X axis way will be visible as the travel is longer then the saddle ways. It should be some shade of green/blue as the turcite is on the table ways. Not sure how to see the Y axis turcite without removing stuff. Your problems might also be corrected by adjusting the feet as Delw suggested.

I'm happy to say I have never hit reset in the middle of a tool change but a helper of mine has done it I think 3 times. I had to temporarily jumper a wire (terminal block on the top rear of tool change casting) to get the motor to temporarily rotate?? so it would return the tool changer to home position. You'll never do it by hand without opening and partially bleeding the tool change hydraulic actuator on the very front of the tool change casting under the sheet metal. There is also a big chain gear with a cam that's driven by the tool arm motor that touches off a limit switch.(LS19)It's under the sheet metal near the LS19 tag on the tool change cover looking from the front left near the Z axis column. That has to be good or you'll get an error. (ATC not ready kind of thing.)

Alarm 1008 happens when you call a tool and that tool is already in the spindle. Here are some things that may help.

Diagnostic 440 is tool in spindle. 432 is for current tool pot at ready station. Depending on the number of tool pots you have, 441 to say 462 (for 22 tool mag) are the tool number in pot number call outs. Sometimes if I have a full set of tools on a job, I'll go in there and set 0 in spindle, (440) then 1 - 22 in 441 - 462 as a way to reset the carousel to tool matches pot. Then I go to the side window and install the tools by hand. I've even taken jobs with a full carousel and loaded the tools in the job order regardless of tool number. Then each run only moves the carousel once around. You can even count how many runs you've done by where tool one is. Might sound silly to some, but when it's all your on money that buys and maintains the machines, a little less carousel wear and tear never hurts. Once around on a 23 tool job helps that idea.

Do you have a reduction gear box on your machine? If so it changes over at 1200 or 1205. I never run mine over 975 in low gear as it gets louder then hell. Has your machine quit changing gears?? If you do not have a reduction gearbox then yes you've got spindle problems. Serious ones.

I have all the manuals but for the life of me I don't know how to share them. They're spiral bound and the drawings are fold outs. It would be a full day and then some at the copy shop to make a copy. Doesn't sound like fun.

Here are the instructions for a manual tool change.

Z axis home and Z light on
Spindle orient. (M19)
Jog mode
Push "pot vertical" button
Push "arm standby" button until "cycle start" begins flashing
Push "cycle start"
The next couple lines are slightly confusing as written. I'll interpret.
"Arm Standby" will either be on your you need to press it again.
Then "pot vertical" again until the pot goes horizontal. Whether a push or push and hold I don't know. Never done this. Only read it in the manual.

Let me know if more is needed.
Dave

I appreciate the fast responses!

I'll see if I can't go through and address each comment in order.

As far as the turcite goes. I'm willing to bet it's pretty worn. This machine seems like it was pushed super hard and even if it doesn't have the oil hole problem, I'm sure they ran it hard.

As far as the machine being level. The machine has sat in the same spot for many years and was bought by our shop from the original owner who used it to make wooden signs. I don't doubt it's out of level so I'll definitely check that with our precision level.

As far as the draw bar going bad. Is there any other symptoms that would show up? Is there an easy way to check without disassembly?

As far as the tool changing goes. The machine recovered from the reset, finishing the carriage rotating, and the arm barely moved. But, if you call up tool 3 it will give the alarm and (on occasion) if you call up the current tool in the spindle it will do a tool change to a different tool. I've tried this with several tool numbers and I've changed each tool number by now. It just doesn't change to tool 3.

Thanks again for all the replies, I'll have to check some more stuff on the machine tomorrow and I'll get more information on the alarm it gives.

I looked at the turcite, it seems fine on the x axis.

The error it gives while changing to tool 3 is 1008.

I forgot to mention, the tool changer is a 22 pocket. And (as far as I can tell) we don't have a 2 speed spindle.

I haven't had time to check level and I'm not 100% sure where I'd put the level.

Hi PMK,

Glad you still had Turcite on the ends of your table. Doesn't mean it's not missing in the middle but it's a start. The fact that this machine used to work with wood is about as bad of news a person could hear. The only other things that add up to that level of ahh-shit is if it cut yellow metals and/or cast iron it's whole life. When's the last time you pulled the way covers on that thing? I'd suggest doing so. They're very easy to get off and you can see a whole lot more once they are. I can imagine caked-in-oil-wood-dust-powder in just about every nook and cranny you come across. If you take off the covers, remove only the fasteners screwed into the table sides and the two on the outer ends next to the machine walls. Do not remove the outer supports as their position is semi critical. Meaning flat and flush with or just shy of the ways. You can check that they are once the covers are off. If you do take the X axis covers off, run your table again all the way to the right and left. While it's in both of those positions, most of the X axis way oil galley feed hole and grooves will be visible at the center of the X axis ways. Wouldn't surprise me if they are at least partially plugged. Also while you're there, look for little bits of green/blue plastic either in the oil grooves or the saddle/ballscrew area. Those would be bits of your Turcite.

Like I said earlier, the 1008 PROG.ERRTF)error has only come up with me if you call the tool that the machine thinks is in the spindle already. Hit your DIAG/PARAM button /DIAG soft key/ then type in NO.440 and ENTER. Diag D440 is tool in spindle. If it says 3 there and also says 3 anywhere else between D441 and D462 that's your problem. Between D440 and D462 you should have only one occurrence of all the numbers between 0 and 22. If that is not the case, change it to make it so. You'll have to set PARAMETER WRITE ENABLE to do it. Parameter 432 about the tool pot ready station number is one I've never bothered with, and didn't know about until digging around for you. I guess check that too while you're there.

Quick and easy check for reduction gearbox - Y axis home, z down most the way, stand on table and look to see if spindle motor is mounted on a big black casting or directly to the machine casting with the drive belt going right to it.

If you can, open the front doors, lower the head about half way and take a picture of your entire machine and put it here. That way I can see how close you have to what I have. It may come in handy either now or in the future. Come to think of it, here are a couple pics of my Max 3.

Dave

PS. Don't know why that sad face is there in the error description. Can't get rid of it.

View attachment 268406

View attachment 268407

First, let me apologize for the state of the machine.

I was told we didn't have the manuals for this machine but it looks like we have the mechanical and electrical manuals. Now, just need to find the operator manual.

Here are the pictures of the front and top.

Oh yeah I forgot about this was supermax (max series) came out with 3 types of carousels one was air driven, one was motor gear reduction cam driven and one was servo driven is I recall. make sure you know what one you have, I had the cam driven one it rarely had issues except when it was moved the thing would lock up and you had to move the motor via hand to unlock it. the cam dog if you want to call it that sometimes works loose and jams things up throwing a error msg.

My boss mentioned that the tool changer works with a mechanism similar to the Geneva mechanism. So, I assume it's motor gear reduction setup. Our other mill is a takisawa mac v4 and is almost entirely air driven, tool changes take longer but are entirely less violent (the arm also locks and therefore doesn't throw tools).

I haven't had time, yet, to pull the way covers. If I have time after work today I'll see about doing it then.

Wow that's an old one with some miles on it. Not sure how much of my X axis way cover info I shared will be relevant with that machine. Looks like the same control and spindle. If you had the reduction gearbox your spindle motor would be sticking out of the top of the sheet metal.

That Geneva mechanism is what rotates the carousel. Runs off a small motor hidden inside the sheet metal. The motor sticking out of the top runs the arm and change mechanisms.

I don't recall ever seeing a operators manual. Much of the machine builder type stuff is in the rear of the electrical manual. You'll likely get a lot of useful information on operating the machine simply by getting your hands on a Fanuc OMC Operators and Parameter Manuals published by Fanuc or GE. Except with uninstalled option, most everything in there will have meaning to your machine.

These tool changers get oldish and don't hold tools as well as when new. Mine doesn't like changing a pair of heavy tools. When I have two heavy tools following each other, I program to an empty pot and do the tool change one tool at a time.

This machine definitely had some hours. The run time reads 540 hours 30 minutes but I'm sure that's incorrect.

I think I found what I'm looking for in the electrical manual. There was a hand written note that appears to be about manually changing the tool number of each pocket. I also looked through the pocket numbers and didn't find a tool 3 anywhere. I didn't look for duplicate numbers, though.

How do I select the pwe parameter? The note in the book said to change it to 1 by pressing 1 then input. But, I can't enter a number.

I forgot to mention, we have a few tools that are too heavy for the tool changer. Notably, a rigid drill chuck. It can sometimes do it but not always. So, I put an m1 before changing it for another tool and after changing to it so I can manually put it in

13engines said:

Hit your DIAG/PARAM button /DIAG soft key/ then type in NO.440 and ENTER. Diag D440 is tool in spindle. If it says 3 there and also says 3 anywhere else between D441 and D462 that's your problem. Between D440 and D462 you should have only one occurrence of all the numbers between 0 and 22. If that is not the case, change it to make it so. You'll have to set PARAMETER WRITE ENABLE to do it. Parameter 432 about the tool pot ready station number is one I've never bothered with, and didn't know about until digging around for you. I guess check that too while you're there.

Click to expand...

Note that the NO. key is part of the LPQ key in the bottom right of the numeric, white area of the control input panel. Watch your input buffer area of the screen (lower left)to see what you're punching in.

The above is all you need to do to look if there is a problem. If you need to change something you have to find the PWE screen which I think is one of the two or three screen pages you find either by pushing DIAG/PARAM a few times or OFFSET or both. Dig around you'll find it. I can only find it when I'm standing there at the machine. You have to be in MDI mode to write/change anything. If that doesn't work try EDIT mode but I'm pretty sure it's MDI. The machine will alarm when you change PWE to 1 but ignore it. Just hit RESET after you're done and have changed PWE back to 0. You should be good after that. If not it's probably because you've changed a parameter that needs a restart. (Which for the above stuff shouldn't happen.) The messages will tell you so if you have to restart. On my machine you only need to turn the computer off and on. Some machines will need to power down all the way. Don't forget that the control key has to be set for full access/edit.

Dave

Thank you, I wasn't in MDI.

In case I messed anything up, I wrote down all the numbers from 450 to 474 and converted them to base 10. Is it possible to have a number higher than the number of pockets as the tool number? Unless I wrote down/converted wrong I got a 28 but there are only 22 pockets. I also came across a set of duplicate numbers, I assume that's not good and possibly where the problem started.

Last minute addition:I flipped to the next page and saw it saw to be in MDI, apparently I never made it that far.

I changed one of the duplicate numbers to tool 3 and it successfully did a tool change to it!

Thanks a ton for the help!