Steelphil
Aluminum
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2013
- Location
- Minneapolis MN
We have a 2013 Haas VF3 SS that just did something very scary today.
I was cutting some soft jaws, I ran the program and everything looked fine, both tools came out in correct order and everything worked as it should. Once it finished I took a look at the jaws, comped the first tool T13 (.500 Endmill) a few tenths, pressed cycle start and went off to my other machine.. I guess I made a mistake and trusted the machine to pull the correct tool out, because when I came back a minute later I noticed that it had a completely different tool in the spindle, running along the same toolpath.. Immediately I thought, crap, I must have somehow pulled up the wrong program.. however looking closer, it was the same program, same tool offset, the machine still had T13 listed as the tool in the spindle.. nothing had changed except for the tool in the spindle was now what used to be T16 (which is completely dissociated to the program I was running, it doesn't use it)..
So I reset, and go looking for my .500 endmill.. and I found it is now T20, which has always been my chamfer mill.. the chamfer mill is now considered T16..
Three tools got physically changed around in the machine.
The tool that was T13 became T20
The tool that was T20 became T16
And T16 became T13..
This would make sense if there was a bad encoder that skipped or double counted the carousel pockets as they went by..however because this is a side arm changer with a 2 tool program, it should have just actuated a toolchange when I pressed cycle start, not involving the carousel at all.
I have talked with our HFO and they told me there are 2 sensors involved with the carousel. one sensor that finds Pocket 1, allowing the carousel to home itself, and one sensor to count pockets as it rotates to keep track of the current active pocket, if one of these goes bad it can double count or other scary issues allowing for wrong tools to end up in your spindle. However because the machine threw a 3rd tool into the mix this becomes and issue they have never heard about before, which may be control related.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar?? To me this seems completely unacceptable, I run this machine unattended a lot and if it decided to do something like drill with a shell mill unexpectedly.. instead of alarm out, it could be very costly.
Thanks!
I was cutting some soft jaws, I ran the program and everything looked fine, both tools came out in correct order and everything worked as it should. Once it finished I took a look at the jaws, comped the first tool T13 (.500 Endmill) a few tenths, pressed cycle start and went off to my other machine.. I guess I made a mistake and trusted the machine to pull the correct tool out, because when I came back a minute later I noticed that it had a completely different tool in the spindle, running along the same toolpath.. Immediately I thought, crap, I must have somehow pulled up the wrong program.. however looking closer, it was the same program, same tool offset, the machine still had T13 listed as the tool in the spindle.. nothing had changed except for the tool in the spindle was now what used to be T16 (which is completely dissociated to the program I was running, it doesn't use it)..
So I reset, and go looking for my .500 endmill.. and I found it is now T20, which has always been my chamfer mill.. the chamfer mill is now considered T16..
Three tools got physically changed around in the machine.
The tool that was T13 became T20
The tool that was T20 became T16
And T16 became T13..
This would make sense if there was a bad encoder that skipped or double counted the carousel pockets as they went by..however because this is a side arm changer with a 2 tool program, it should have just actuated a toolchange when I pressed cycle start, not involving the carousel at all.
I have talked with our HFO and they told me there are 2 sensors involved with the carousel. one sensor that finds Pocket 1, allowing the carousel to home itself, and one sensor to count pockets as it rotates to keep track of the current active pocket, if one of these goes bad it can double count or other scary issues allowing for wrong tools to end up in your spindle. However because the machine threw a 3rd tool into the mix this becomes and issue they have never heard about before, which may be control related.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar?? To me this seems completely unacceptable, I run this machine unattended a lot and if it decided to do something like drill with a shell mill unexpectedly.. instead of alarm out, it could be very costly.
Thanks!