Where my "Home"

[BSchwark]

My machine will not go "Home". The problem appears to be in the "Y"axis.

B&S Mistral (DEA) 7-10-5, Scales are RSF Elektronik scales by DEA.

Scales appear to be enclosed and difficult to be able to clean?

Any other ideas before calling B&S

[craiger_ny]

Does it home in an odd position or not home at all? Any errors come up?

[BSchwark]

No errors. It is suppose to home in the back left corner. It goes there then come all the way to the front and machine faults out on hard stop. No message.

[craiger_ny]

It might be a dirty scale. That is your cheapest place to start anyway. I'd do everything I could to check it and clean it before calling someone. That might not be it but you might as well start cheap. But I am not familiar with those scales so I am not 100% sure what you are up against.

I'd hope you'd get an error if it was something else. It sounds like it is looking for a home indicator on the scale and not reaching it.

[#2#]

No errors. It is suppose to home in the back left corner. It goes there then come all the way to the front and machine faults out on hard stop. No message.

Hmmmm, I'm not familiar with your machine but something other than the scale sounds wonky. I know on my machine that home is determined by a microswitch. When mine homes, it moves all the way to the end (stop or microswitch?) and then moves back. I am thinking maybe it moves to the overtravel stop switch and then moves back to trigger the home switch. If the home switch were broken, it would continue to move in that direction 'searching' for it.

Can you pull the covers off and see if yours has microswitches? If so, can you test them with an ohmmeter? Power down, remove the wires and then check that when the switch is depressed there is no resistance between the two terminals.

I'll investigate on mine as soon as I get a chance.

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

It might be a dirty scale. That is your cheapest place to start anyway. I'd do everything I could to check it and clean it before calling someone. That might not be it but you might as well start cheap. But I am not familiar with those scales so I am not 100% sure what you are up against.

I'd hope you'd get an error if it was something else. It sounds like it is looking for a home indicator on the scale and not reaching it.

I think that whatever that machine uses for registering the HOME position is missing, be it a magnet that the reader passes over OR a block that it 'passes' through. Look at the other scales, see if there is a little black piece close to the scale near the home position and then see if it is on the problem axis too. If it is NOT there, then someone, somehow has knocked it off the machine. The other type of 'home' block I have seen is a mounted block on the side of the table and a flat piece of metal attached to the moving portion of the machine, the plate of metal moves through the block, regertering the position of the movable part of the machine.

[cmmguy]

I'm with Matty(welcome back btw). It sounds like a limit switch issue...

[Matthew D. Hoedeman]

I'm with Matty(welcome back btw). It sounds like a limit switch issue...

Didn't know I was gone!

[kmcmm]

Check your y axis encoder, I have the same machine, but never that problem. Just an idea.

[BSchwark]

Its working again. Thanks. Encoders are inclosed not like a Global or Excel. Hard to get to. Last thing I tried was air along the opening. Dirt? or just poking around enough the machine gave up this time (down for the 3 count) until the next time.
Thanks for the input.
BS

[craiger_ny]

Could be dirt. I am used to mechanical limit and home switches like these guys said but recently I encountered a scale that has indicators on it that the encoder counts to home. When it was dirty it could not count them properly (some must have gotten missed) and it would home off location.

Cleaned it and all has been well since.

[#2#]

Its working again. Thanks. Encoders are inclosed not like a Global or Excel. Hard to get to. Last thing I tried was air along the opening. Dirt? or just poking around enough the machine gave up this time (down for the 3 count) until the next time.
Thanks for the input.
BS

I hope that was clean air and fairly low pressure!!! You might want to get a couple of those cans of air for cleaning keyboards, etc. to use in the future.

[cmmguy]

Didn't know I was gone!

Oh, yeah you were gone alright... doo, doo, doo, doo - doo, doo, doo, doo... this is July Matt, where have you been...





I just didnt remember seeing any of your posts from last week and kept thinking that you were off the last couple of days of the week... but I just checked and you did post on Friday. I am losing my mind... it's ok........ what were we just talking about?

[calbritton]

I believe those have a magnetic or optical limit switch. I had one come loose once and had to tighten it back up. I used a feeler gage to set the distance but I don't remember what the gap was. Glad you got it working again. I had to issue a PO# before the tech would tell me what to do to fix mine.

[cmmguy]

I believe those have a magnetic or optical limit switch. I had one come loose once and had to tighten it back up. I used a feeler gage to set the distance but I don't remember what the gap was. Glad you got it working again. I had to issue a PO# before the tech would tell me what to do to fix mine.

Well, isnt that special!!