pm940 CNC no power to x,y and z axis

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Douglas Michaud

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I am having a tough time trying to troubleshoot why I can not get my machine to power the CNC controller through the start button on the machine. I was wondering if anyone has had any trouble trying to configure there machines
 
Hate 0 replies... I've never seen the inside of one. Have you called the PM guys? Could you trace the controller wires that are noted as power input and determine if they are AC or DC inputs? From there if power goes in and nothign is coming out... start w/ fuses and basics. Loose wires, wires that came off or apart (snags and pinch cuts do happen).
 
countryguy said:
Hate 0 replies... I've never seen the inside of one. Have you called the PM guys? Could you trace the controller wires that are noted as power input and determine if they are AC or DC inputs? From there if power goes in and nothign is coming out... start w/ fuses and basics. Loose wires, wires that came off or apart (snags and pinch cuts do happen).
Click to expand...
Ok so I believe it is the DC contactor that turns the x,y & z axis controllers on. If the coil on the contactor is burnt out, I believe the contactor will not work electrically. It does work if I manually push the button on the contactor itself. Does that make sense to anyone out there?
 
That makes sense. If the coil is burnt out then the contactor definitely would not work. But that would be a highly unusual condition, almost never happens.

You have a pretty good start on troubleshooting. You now know that the stuff after the contactor works. So that is a good thing. So now the question is: Why is the contactor not pulling in?

Maybe an E-stop button pushed? Loose wire? If you have the schematic, find out what is supposed to energize the contactor coil and find the point that you are losing the signal. You're almost there. :)
 
After giving it more thought, I realized when I rigged the machine I manually moved all axis’s to put the machine in a more balanced positioned. In doing so, the limit switches are not activated. When I fired up the machine and downloaded Mach3 and configured it, the software can’t tell where the machine is at. I think I need to bring the x,y & z back to home and see if that works
 
Mach3 doesn't need the switches to be in a given state at start up, you can home all the axes from any power up position with the Ref All Home button
 
Ok I am officially stumped. I can not figure out why the contactor will not latch. I have checked e-stops, limit switches, loose wires, I’m stumped
 
Do you have a schematic for the machine? Grab a multimeter and figure out where you are losing the contactor energize signal. One connection point at a time. The signal starts from somewhere, and ends at the contactor. Many times the E-stop switch is the problem, that's where I would look first. I would expect to see power on both sides of the E-stop switch, relative to the common, if it's working correctly.
 
Right after I posted that last comment, I was testing all the circuits. There was a loose wire coming out of the DC transformer. As soon as I tightened it the one contactor started to latch. I’m assuming the other contactor that isn’t working has the same problem. Just need to trace the wires
 
Ok, one last problem I hope. I can not get my computer to recognize or operate the controller. Upon fire up, I get a DLL error and it says that it is going to ignore the controller
 
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