connecting cyclone lathe, with phase converter

[P.J.SAILS]

having read other posts here re phase converters we
just bought a cyclone no cy03118 b year jan 89 electrical no 80080975 , (out from Henley College a few years ago. )
and have bought a digital phase converter(10hp) and sign wave filter, and connected up , drives and turret all powers up
and works well , but we are getting a spindle drive fault 1008 . ?
we are suspecting the lathe ( with fanuc ot control) does not like something about the converter ,
we have not fitted a neutral wire generator as the lathe only has 3 wire plus earth coming out of it , and in the black box is an auto transformer, which has a neutral wire generator built in . the transformer is set at in 415v 3ph to out 220v 3ph . and nothing is connected to the neutral tag (on the transformer ) .
could we actually be better to provide 220v 3phase . and do away with the transformer .?
any help would be great .
thanks
peter.

[Lone_Ranger]

If this is happening at "boot up" then it is possible it is a "periheral", usually something as simple as low lube oil, or a dodgy switch somewhere

The Fanuc control walks through a sequence checking various things one at a time and I have had that same alarm at start up when the oil was low on a Cyclone I used to have. The reason for it showing a spindle alarm is that the spindle is the next item in the sequence to be checked and if the previous item (The oil) is incorrect then the Fanuc can`t check the spindle so it alarms out at that point

Not very logical I agree but mine only did it at start up, other times if the oil went low it just stopped for no apparent reason, be warned, if the oil goes down and you top it up with the machine switched on then the spindle will start of it`s own accord when the oil switch is operated by filling, always switch the machine off, fill the oil and turn back on again.

That may or may not be the case with your machine but I had two of them and they both did the same, one was on Fanuc 0T-C and one was on Fanuc 0T-B.

Yours may well be different

Regards
Rob

[P.J.SAILS]

Hi thanks for the help . i will give it a try . and check all the levels .
question , should all cyclones lathes have a neutral wire . as this
one was not feed with a neutral wire when we bought it .
the incoming 415 v 3 phase and earth goes to a transformer , which out puts it
to 220v 3ph . but the neutral tapping on the transformer in unused .
is this why we are having a spindle error .
peter.

[Lone_Ranger]

Hi thanks for the help . i will give it a try . and check all the levels .
question , should all cyclones lathes have a neutral wire . as this
one was not feed with a neutral wire when we bought it .
the incoming 415 v 3 phase and earth goes to a transformer , which out puts it
to 220v 3ph . but the neutral tapping on the transformer in unused .
is this why we are having a spindle error .
peter.

I doubt it, I had full 3 phase mains at my unit so it wasn`t an issue, I only connected 3 phase and Earth they were fine, however I do know that some of these Inverters don`t actually produce 3 proper phases, 2 phases and a "Virtual phase" and Fanuc spindle drives will not work with those type of inverters, it must be the type that has the extra circuitry to provide proper Sine wave ouput for all 3 phases, (Expensive !!) these are commonly known as Low Frequency or "Pure Sine Wave" inverters, the other type are known as "Modified Sine Wave" inverters and are normally not the right ones for running 3 phase CNC Fanuc drives off, they will happily run a standard 3 phase induction type motor but that`s really all they should be used for

The output has to be the same quality as the 3 phase mains would be and you would probably only get really good results from a Digital Inverter, here is a link to an article posted by a company called "Direct Drives", they supplied an Inverter to a friend of mine to run a Denford Fanuc Triac and it cost him over £4000 but it did have the extra Neutral box fitted which is needed on the Triac, don`t think it is needed on the Cyclone but you need to do some serious research and possibly contact a couple of companies that specialise in these type of Inverter Units.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/3-THREE-PHASE ... 333/g.html

Please read it all carefully, especially the section on Digital Inverters

These are the perils of buying 3 phase CNC machines when the buyer doesn`t have 3 phase supply, what looks a great buy (And it is if the buyer already has 3 phase supply) These machines are not the sort you can just say well OK I`ll swap out the motors for single phase 240V type, just isn`t going to work, sorry

From re-reading your first post it would seem that you do have the right type of inverter so it is more likely to be something else, have you checked that way lube oil level yet

Regards
Rob

[Martin]

Can you post a picture of the electronics.

[jons]

Hi
So it powers up,references, and the turret works as it should ? but as soon as you try and use the motor to give it some revs you get the fault 1008 spindle drive fault, is this correct scenario ?
jon