Flow Waterjet Trouble

I am programming and operating an Integrated Flying Bridge 50i. The machine is 7 years old and has 5400hrs on it. It is a fixed head with a 50 horsepower motor pushing a 60ksi single intensifier pump. The machine was originally installed (before me) with a windows 98 pc. About 4 yrs ago management made the decision to upgrade the pc to windows XP running flowmatser6.0. Thank God! My problem is the machine is shutting down at random intervals. Sometimes a small generic window opens on the terminal with a red X and an “ok” button, and other times the full size error window shows up informing me to check Flow diagnostics. Regardless of the window, the shut down code indicated on the Flow diagnostics menu is always the same; intensifier overload P201.

Previously, shut downs were seldom making it an occasional inconvenience. However, occurrences have increased over the last 4 months to between 9 and 14 shut downs in an 8 hr period. Flow has sent out a tech twice. The first guy did not know what to do. The second told us we need to replace the inlet water charge pump. We just happened to have a pump on hand with a relief valve assembly attached. Yet, the next day the shut downs persisted.

The latest diagnosis is that the motor needs to be replaced or rewound. We have had electricians look at the machine. Some have agreed with this diagnosis, and others are not sure. The latest guy said we should put coolers on the controller cabinets. I finished the installation yesterday. today I had 4 shutdowns in a 1hr period. The electrician tells me he will obtain a mega ohms meter to check the winding on the motor.
Any advice?

Stupid question but it would be foolish not to ask:

Have you made sure that the PC case, and the controller cabinet for the machine are clean and that all their fans are in working order?

It might also be worth pulling the shrouds off the individual axes' controllers to check for dust accumulation, as most servo controllers rely entirely on natural convection to cool themselves.

I was able to solve a similar machine problem (one axis would stop responding and FlowPath would crash) by giving everything a good cleaning with dry, oil-free compressed air and a box of cotton swabs.

Henry

The waterjet that I run (non-Flow), had “gremlins” when we purchased it. We fought various errors and oddities for almost two months. The third service tech that came out was looking in the control cabinets try to figure out the issues, after replacing cables and trying software upgrades, etc. I mentioned to him that a wise auto technician once told me that “90% of electrical problems involved grounding.” He checked all of the ground terminals in the machine and found six (6) of them loose. One was not even connected. After tightening and reconnecting, the “gremlins” went away. Maybe you are experiencing something similar.

Good luck.

On my waterjet the intensifier pump hooks up to the controller with a few wires. Those wires tell the pump to turn on and off, plus they tell the controller when the pump is overstroking.

When they set the machine up they eventually found a cut in those wires that kept the pump from turning on like it should. I have no idea how your machine is set up, but maybe the communication between the control and intensifier is messed up.

Sorry I can't be more help!

I know little about waterjets, but I have spent way to much of my life chasing gremlins. My electrical mantra is now 1) connections 2) connections 3) connections 4) other things.

Try to get someone to tell you what this "intensifier overload" actually means and how it works. If it is a pressure sensor, replace it. If it is checking motor current, look back at your not only your motor, but also your input voltage under load. Have you or any of your neighbors added electrical load to the transformer? Can you lessen the pressure out of the intensifier to see if that clears or reduces the alarm frequency?