Need help Alarm 123 1999 VF0E

Hi.

I purchased a 1999 VF0e back in March. Overall it has been pretty good to me. However, Pretty much since I got it, I have been getting alarm 123 spindle drive fault. (of course, not when I looked at it before purchasing) I have done some research, and it seems like some other people have had similar issues. Up until last week, I would simply turn the machine off and turn it back on. Sometimes that would work for hours, days, or several weeks with no further issues. Fast forward to last week... I was fighting the thing all day, but could still get it to run. The next day it would not power on at all. I would power the machine on, release the E stop, reset, and the alarm 123 would pop up. reset again and you could hear the spindle drive make a noise, then the alarm would not clear. I had someone else reset it while i looked and the "power fault" light flashes until the reset button is released. I Checked the buss voltage on all of the servo amps and it read 340-350 volts. The parameter/ diagnostics screen showed 350 volts as well. So after checking all of this, I contacted Zaritron:
Zaritron

He was the one walking me through everything listed above to check. He came to a conclusion that it was 90% chance a bad spindle drive with a small possibility of it being something with the servo amps. He recommended I send back the drive and all 4 servo amps. I did that. He said he put the drive on the machine and it was faulty. He put the servo amps on the machine and said they were 100% functional, but recommended a refurbishing of each one to replace capacitors and clean out the 20 years of dust/ debris. I agreed that was probably a good idea. So I disconnected everything, labeling all wires before doing so, so that i knew exactly where they went to put everything back together.


I got everything back from him today. connected everything 100% exactly where it was before.

Turn the machine on, and I get the same alarm when hitting reset and you can hear the spindle drive making the same noise when the reset button is pressed. Shut the machine off, opened the electrical cabinet, turned it back on again. This time upon hitting reset I heard a lour "POP" noise. Looked in the back, the fuse orange light was lit up on the X servo amp.

Any ideas of things I should check/ try? I'm no expert on fixing machines by any stretch, but I'm stumped I have not turned anything on since and killed power going to it.

Some years back I spent a lot of time chasing something similar in one of mine and in the end it was a couple of pinched wires in my dc 5-c rotary. The wires were pinched in the box on the side of the rotary and none of the symtoms had anything to do with the rotary.

Is this a haas vector drive?

Sounds to me as if you have a shorted X axis power cable. Have you tried disabling X axis to see if the alarm clears? The DC bus from the spindle driver powers your axis drivers. I have seen dozens of times over the years a shorted X axis cable ( it's the only 1 that moves under the way covers , and is usually covered in sharp chips) blow the spindle driver and the X axis driver. If you disable it. And the spindle driver isnt toast. Then the alarm should clear. Then it's time to pull way covers and replace the X axis cable.

Hoss710 said:

Sounds to me as if you have a shorted X axis power cable. Have you tried disabling X axis to see if the alarm clears? The DC bus from the spindle driver powers your axis drivers. I have seen dozens of times over the years a shorted X axis cable ( it's the only 1 that moves under the way covers , and is usually covered in sharp chips) blow the spindle driver and the X axis driver. If you disable it. And the spindle driver isnt toast. Then the alarm should clear. Then it's time to pull way covers and replace the X axis cable.

Click to expand...

Yes this is a vector drive... also,
Wow that is amazing! So after talking to the man from Zaritron today (very helpful) he suggested I try disabling the x axis like you said. That worked. spindle ran fine and I could zero return Z and y, jog them around, and do tool changes. He suggested that I check the Resistance between all of the wires that run to the X axis motor, and that it should be around the same. got between 10.5 and 11 Ohms with all 3 combinations. He said they should all be about the same. I blew out the X axis amp . I changed the X axis to the A axis (since I do not have a rotary table at the moment) and it blew that out switched to the X axis as well. So there definitely must be something with the X axis. He said it could be the motor as well, but I really do not think that is it on the count that it has sounded "smooth" since I have been running it. If the wires measure a similar resistance, is that likely still the problem?

Both of the drives that blew out while hooked up to the X axis now have a fault light as well as a "open fuse" light.

Remove the way covers. You need to disconnect the cable to the X axis motor to check it correctly. I have honestly only ever seen 1 x axis motor burn up. And it was on a machine that took a lightning strike. Also disconnect the wires from the axis driver. Then check leg to leg on the cable , and then leg to ground. they should all read no continuity. I'm certain your x axis cable is toast!! I have seen this dozens of times over the years (I was a haas tech for may moons ). Even in my own machines.

Hoss710 said:

Remove the way covers. You need to disconnect the cable to the X axis motor to check it correctly. I have honestly only ever seen 1 x axis motor burn up. And it was on a machine that took a lightning strike. Also disconnect the wires from the axis driver. Then check leg to leg on the cable , and then leg to ground. they should all read no continuity. I'm certain your x axis cable is toast!! I have seen this dozens of times over the years (I was a haas tech for may moons ). Even in my own machines.

Click to expand...

Turns out it was the cable for the X axis. Got them replaced today. What a pain in the ass routing the cable was. Wow.

Thank you for the help. Your comment basically confirmed what the people I talked to said may be the problem. What was great is you didn't even know the exact issue I was having (other than what I originally posted) and you could basically diagnose it. That basically really had me believe that it was the issue. I owe you a beer!

I had a couple issues including the 123 alarm that Zoltan at Zaritron helped me work through. I can't speak highly enough about him. It is really weird that the X axis cable could be related to the 123 alarm though. Do you think the cable got tweaked when taking the drives out?

metal-ica said:

I had a couple issues including the 123 alarm that Zoltan at Zaritron helped me work through. I can't speak highly enough about him. It is really weird that the X axis cable could be related to the 123 alarm though. Do you think the cable got tweaked when taking the drives out?

Click to expand...

Is that the owners name? I was dealing with Stoyan. I thought he was the owner.

In any case, They definitely did not get tweaked when taking the amplifiers out. I was very careful. I think there was an intermittent problem with the drive, but I think the main problem was the X axis cable. It probably has chips covered in it. I can't really tell because I didn't look that close. Its covered with oil and nasty shit. The vector drive does power all 4 amps so it does sort of make sense to me now. I am by no means an electrician like I said before. I just do my best to figure these kinds of things out strictly out of necessity.

I'm glad you got it all sorted out. It can be a difficult 1 to find.

I meant to say Stoyan*....great guy

Always great info here, great people to share it as well.
Glad your up and running.


Those X Axis cables are a real pain in the rump. Sitting in old oil, coolant and chips they constantly move back and forth at the same place with every Y axis move, its only a matter of time before they go south.

Hopefully just a quick short to throw up an Alarm...but sometimes instead of an Alarm it fries the Amp...sometimes not just the amp, but the drive...been there done that and while nice when the Tech says he has all the parts in the Van to get me up and running...that bill royally sucks.

Funny as the 2nd time it happened I was able to clear the alarm for weeks, even went in and repaired the broken wires in cable. Then cable crapped out in a different spot before finally changing cable. All up and running no problems.
In another machine it went from Clear the Alarm once to new Cable, amp and drive.

It is worthwhile to wrap the X cable in nylon spiral wrap. It gives the cable something besides the casing to rub on and when you see the spiral wrap pieces in the tray it is time to go in and replace it.