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New old Makino, 1996 SNC 64 from auction, won't home? Any thoughts?

NTM

Cast Iron
Joined
Sep 4, 2009
Location
Mooresville, NC
We mostly run Mori here but we have a pretty good Makino SNC64 graphite mill that we use to run phenolic. I picked up another older one at auction a little while ago and it looks like a pretty nice old machine but it won't do anything for me.

It turns on. I give it air and turn on the dust collector and it has no error messages. Everything seems fine.

I can jog the X,Y,Z axis if I hold the over travel override button.

It doesn't want to do anything until I home it. And I don't know how to home it. I'm hoping this is the problem and maybe nothing more complex.

Fellows, I've been around CNC for over 20 years and this is the 14th CNC that I've purchased (that I can remember) so I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I don't know what the hell I'm doing here.


I've done the obvious stuff like press the reference button and cycle start etc. and turn the knobs for the different axis etc.

I don't have the books and I can't find anything on Google. My books for my other Makino (which has absolute encoders) has nothing.

The only clue that I have is over travel X+, Y+, Z+, X-, Y-, Z- in the alarm history. Not active alarms, but in history. I clear it and it always re-appears when I turn it on.

Could I get a little help from you guys? Thanks.
 
Sound like possibly a stuck switch or broken wire on the hard overtravel circuit. Makino usually tied interlock release signals into the overtravel override switch too so could be an interlock is active.
 
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Sound like possibly a stuck switch or broken wire on the hard overtravel circuit. Makino usually tied interlock release signals into the overtravel override switch too so could be an interlock is active.

There's no active overtravel alarm of any kind. Looking at the diagnostic parameters everything pertaining to overtravel is a 0

Maybe there's something I don't understand.
 
Sorry You said you tried reference and cycle start, that is different from what I suggested. I've run numerous makinos but its been awhile, trying to remember
 
I don't have a makino with a pro a control, but we have a pro 3 controlled one.

Are there any alarms if you hit the CUSTOM button and page over to the ALARM section over there?

That's usually where they hide the makino side alarms.

Edit: Sorry, after a second look at the picture you posted, I believe that's the screen you're actually at. lol.

Is anything set to maintenance mode? Is there a tool changer motor drive in the electrical cabinet with an error (non-fanuc)? All the door interlock switches working? I'm surprised it isn't telling you what it doesn't like.

Does the machine have a -mate control in the background (hit system key, page over to PMM if the mate control exists, check there). On the makino a88 we have, they use a mate control for the tool changer matrix.
 
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Those are nice, little machines! Can you MDI or run a program with G91 G28 for each axis to home it?

We had a first gen SNC a long time ago that ran along side an OKK DGM-400, both of them were great graphite machines. If your SNC's are 1st gen, I cannot stress how careful to be with the spindle. 1st gen spindles were a bit complicated and not heavy duty. They are comprised of three different pieces from top to bottom and rebuilding them is truly a crap shoot whether it will last or not. SNC's can even cut hard tool steel, albeit not any heavy cutting. A friend's company used an SNC for cutting small mold inserts; SNC's move so smooth and are very accurate.
 
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Ok, got the machine going. Thank you everyone for your help.

I found this screen under the custom screens.


I was in MDI mode (don't know if that matters) and activated mode select

went into ATC maintenance and was able to manually activate the different solenoids for the tool changer

The main door between the ATC and the machine side wouldn't open. I think it was locked? Perhaps because something wasn't where it belonged? IDK.

I turned the machine off, killed the air and manually moved the different air actuated mechanisms. Powered it back up. Went back to that screen and now the door would open and close.

I turned off mode select and exited that menu and used the auto zero and start button and the machine homed.

I honestly don't know what I did to "fix" the problem but I'm guess something got jarred in shipping and fiddling around with the ATC unstuck it.

Anyways, it's alive now. I'm warming the spindle up.

Thanks again.
 
I've been in that situation more times than I can remember where I "fixed it" but don't know how. "How'd you fix it?" or "What was the problem?" and my only answer was "I dunno I just messed with it until it started working...."
Share some pics, I love a good auction find, we're currently futzing with an old mazak fjv I got at auction.
 
I've been in that situation more times than I can remember where I "fixed it" but don't know how. "How'd you fix it?" or "What was the problem?" and my only answer was "I dunno I just messed with it until it started working...."
Share some pics, I love a good auction find, we're currently futzing with an old mazak fjv I got at auction.


A follow up post

I got it sight unseen from an auction. It wasn't expensive.

OgrNzty.jpg



The new old Makino
8MSGSGi.jpg



Its slightly less dinky younger brother:

fSBqEfe.jpg


We run a fair bit of phenolic here and the graphite mills are good at this.


The error that I started this thread with came back again today but I turned it off and wiggled stuff in the ATC again and it went away again. I guess I probably have a problem in there that I'll need to address at some point. The ATC is surprisingly rinky dink.



Unrelated, the CRT went wonky today:

Dr9CvDp.jpg


It did that on day one and I blew the cable connectors with air and reseated them and it eventually went away. Well, it came back. I've not seen this kind of problem before, I'm not sure where to start with it.

I'll start a new thread and ask if anybody has any ideas about it.
 
the CRT went wonky today
Looks like it's not detecting horizontal sync, which is a special voltage level on the analog video signal that goes into the video monitor. Most old video monitors have an adjustment (a potentiometer) for detecting horizontal sync. If you can find said potentiometer (on the back of the video monitor), you can futz with it until the picture stabilizes. You might want to record the position of the pot before you adjust it, because if the cause is something else, now you potentially have two failures to sort out. But I would put money on the HSYNC pot.
 
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Looks like it's not detecting horizontal sync, which is a special voltage level on the analog video signal that goes into the video monitor. Most old video monitors have an adjustment (a potentiometer) for detecting horizontal sync. If you can find said potentiometer (on the back of the video monitor), you can futz with it until the picture stabilizes. You might want to record the position of the pot before you adjust it, because if the cause is something else, now you potentially have two failures to sort out. But I would put money on the HSYNC pot.


You are awesome. Thank you.
 
Our shop had a smaller model Makino that had four bolts holding the head in tram. I can't tell from your pictures if it uses the same. If someone crashed hard enough to move the head to far, it wouldn't make a limit. I don't think it threw an error message. One of those deals where if you don't know you won't know. If that's the case, loosen the bolts, clear any debris between and let the head settle down on the ways. Basically a self tramming head. Once you've done this, it should reference.
 
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