z axis speed Amada fo-3015NT 3

[hookie1985]

Ok we had our internal z cable replaced in the head this week. "aka the short cable" but now our z axis is super slow when it goes in the negative. Theres no in between. we usually run on standard at a decent pace but now its so slow we cant, and medium is so fast it crashes every time. I know theres a pot by the main board that controls that. would anyone happen to know what it is?

 

[ausman]

I doubt it would be worth trying.

 

[jetrep]

Amada considers the cone to be a consumable item. Impact and heat can cause them to go bad. They certainly don't last forever and it is a good idea to have a spare on hand. We've had cones that look fine to the naked eye but no longer sense properly. Installed a new cone and problems went away. It is very helpful when troubleshooting to have a spare available that is known to be good.

 

[ausman]

did you resolve it?

 

[hookie1985]

Sorry was sick on vacation all of last week. We are stil in the same boat. I', going to beg scrooge for a new cone for Christmas. lol

 

[ausman]

Do you have WACS on the machine?
If you the WACS head you should test it if you haven't already.
It's a bit of cash especially if it's not the problem.

 

[hookie1985]

I do have WACS but we never had it hooked up

 

[hookie1985]

So i hooked up the external cable on lunch and re calibrated it for the heck of it. now its running fine again. So does that point to the cone or could it be the internal cable they put in was bad or something?

 

[ausman]

Id say it's the cable is shagged.
About 50 posts ago i mentioned if the cable was a home made job or genuine Amada, did you confirm this?

 

[hookie1985]

It came straight from amada. I lost track of all the posts sorry

 

[ausman]

That's weird, maybe there is a bad solder joint or the connector is bad.
Compare the resistance or the 2 cables, end to end of the inner & shield, & check the inner to outer on the faulty cable, maybe the shield is touching the inner core?
Now id be focusing all my attention to the coaxial cable.

 

[hookie1985]

Well they are supposed to send the tech back out. As of now im just going to run the external and make up as much time as we can. I will check for sure when he comes back though. Thank you guys so much for all the help and patience. It is awesome to have a forum like this. I seemed to have learned so much in the couple months ive been on here.

 

[LASERNINJA]

On the NT, if you want to use a 10" focus lens, there is an adaptor / extension piece you put on in place of the cone, then you put the same cone on to the bottom of the adaptor. It extends the distance between the tip of the nozzle and the focus lens by 2.5 inches. Exactly the amount we are looking at. Or at least pretty close.

I suspect that when you changed from the internal wire to external wire. You changed the status of the switch that tells the machine which cone is on there. When it's going slow, it thinks it has the 10" cone on there. Now, the machine thinks it has the 7.5"lens set up.

You can confirm this theory by looking at the z position. I bet it's back to normal.

 

[hookie1985]

Thats weirx. I dont think we even own a 10 inch lens. I will check it in the morning and let ya know for sure. Also i found a company in California that is going to rebuild our old cones for us for a fraction of what they are to replace so i should have it back in a couple weeks so once and for all hopefully we will be cooking again lol

 

[hookie1985]

Tap a Keg and ring the bells!! We are back up to 100%!! It turns out the Tech wired the micro switch on the bottom of our internal plate backwards. we are good now! Thank you all very much!!

 

[ausman]

well done, I can't get my head around why a couple of weeks ago you changed to the external coax & it was still not working & you changed it back, then just now you changed to external coax again & it worked, and the problem was in fact the micro switch wiring.
It's enough to do ones head in.
Anyway glad it's resolved.

 

[hookie1985]

When i did the coax i had forgot to re calibrate the head with the trace off i believe. So when i did it this week it worked. But i cant figure out why the tech wouldn't check his wires.. idk

 

[hookie1985]

I meant the external. I forgot to turn trace off so it wouldn't let me calibrare.. I was in a flurry trying and went too fast and it bit me in the butt.. but i am thankful for everyone's help on here for sure.

 

[LASERNINJA]

The reason ausman and I think others can't get a handle on what happened is because we don't have the whole story.

My idea of what happened, and even that doesn't add up completely, goes like this:

When the guy cam in to replace the short z sensor cable in side the head, he broke, bumped it wired a switch incorrectly. The z sensor internal wire is right next to two switches on the very bottom of the cutting head. One of these switches tells the control the cutting cone is on, the other tells the control that the 10" lens adapter is on. As I previously stated, which no one read, the ten inch lens adapter off sets the z axis by 2.5 inches making the stroke length that much shorter.

So, to put it all together... The program starts, the head starts to comes down, the control looks at the " the thicknesses " adds one inch to that number and turns on the sensor. Now, the z axis is offset by 2.5" because a mechanic is not careful, plus the standard one inch, plus the thickness and turns on the sensor and traveled very slowly downward looking for the material. (How many times have I typed this?)

The part that is missing, and I am not sure how or why it's missing. At some point the machine should have generated a "lens not correct" alarm. I can not imagine how the mechanic could have bypassed this function/error code.

My point is, not the machine's fault, mechanic's. I hope no one got charged for the service call.

My other point. I like helping people out. I like to think I know a thing or two about these machines. If I am going to keep contributing, give me a damn purple star, read what I write, if you don't understand, ask questions, do the experiments I propose unless you think you are really going to break something, report the results. I am paid professional, just not by the forum.

 

[ausman]

Well said,
LASAERNINJA you nailed the problem on the very 1st comment, & I just over complicated it.

The part I missed is that the head was travelling at high speed in the down direction then switching to sensing (slow speed) 3.5" before it was supposed to. there should have been about 4.5" of high speed Z travel before switching to sensing.

I was convinced it was a coax problem, the very 1st comment that it crashed every time indicated to me that the responsiveness or calibration was out, if the sensing is coming on a few inches early the last thing I would expect is a crash.

 

[LASERNINJA]

No, I apologize. I get a little reved up sometimes. I think it's either beer kids, or life on the road.