Help needed with my orac

All info relating to the Denford ORAC CNC lathes

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PeterW
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu 27 Nov , 2008 14:51 pm

Help needed with my orac

Post by PeterW » Fri 29 Jul , 2016 23:33 pm

I purchased an early orac lathe 1985 ,this lathe is as new it has only done 2 test pieces,all of the accessories are still in the protective coating ,fired the machine up ,everything was working ok .loaded a program for a test piece,started cutting ok ,as it was doing the final profile,I had used the wrong tool and got the tool angle wrong ,bit of a train wreck ,hit the emg stop .sorted everything out .start again ,bit of a problem with the y axis,sometimes it works ,sometimes it don't ,if I keep the reset button pressed for the y axis I can turn the leedscrew freely by hand ,when I let go of the reset ,I can't move the leedscrew or the stepper motor ,in manual mode the X axis works fine but the y axis doesn't move ,but the counter on the vdu continues as if the y axis is moving ,if I run a program the X axis moves as it should but the y axis stays still ,and the machine goes through the motions as if it is cutting metal ,
Anyone got any thoughts on this problem ,
Regards Peter .

Martin
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Re: Help needed with my orac

Post by Martin » Mon 01 Aug , 2016 9:15 am

I presume you mean the Z axis as you don't have a Y axis on a lathe. If you undo the front cover you should see the electrical rack with the X & Z drives. You could swap the drives over & see if the fault moves.

PeterW
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu 27 Nov , 2008 14:51 pm

Re: Help needed with my orac

Post by PeterW » Mon 01 Aug , 2016 20:40 pm

Thanks Martin ,before I try that ,correct me if I am wrong ,with the z axis having a train wreck ,the stepper motor was over torqued.does that mean that the rotor position has been lost and the system has to be reinitialized.if so how do I do that ?
Regards Peter

Martin
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CNC Guru
Posts: 1897
Joined: Fri 24 Feb , 2006 17:09 pm
Location: Brighouse

Re: Help needed with my orac

Post by Martin » Tue 02 Aug , 2016 8:29 am

Hi Peter

No, the Orac does not have a home position so every time you turn it on the motor will be in a different position until you set the tool offsets.

PeterW
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu 27 Nov , 2008 14:51 pm

Re: Help needed with my orac

Post by PeterW » Wed 03 Aug , 2016 22:08 pm

This evening I was going to swap the drives as you suggested,on impulse I thought I would give it one more try ,powered up the machine ,switched to manual,and the X and z axis worked ok ,loaded a program and it ran through the 140 lines ok without a hitch,I ran it again ,and it was ok .so whatever it was seems to have fixed itself ,
Thanks for your help Martin ,
Regards Peter .

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