I don't think adjusting anything on the sensor board is going to help. Check your 'thickness" on your cutting condition page. Also, check the "follow start height" on the laser set page. I think the sensor is coming on too soon. Keeping your thickness to what it should be and setting the start height at 25.00mm should speend it up.

we had ours set on .3937mm. do you know if there is a setting to adjust the speed that the medium and standard settings are?

Hookie is the control the HS2000 board?

So, I made a mistake. The machine I looked at today was set to the same value. That must not be it. It sounds like the sensor is coming on too soon. Usually, one inch above the "thickness" the sensor starts looking for the material. I have attached a picture. I am not as cool as laserdog, I can't insert it in the text.
Compare the values you have to the picture and let me know.

• http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=6f3ae5a2-76be-4df3-859d-cb

ausman yes it is the HS2000 control board

laser ninja we have the same numbers as far as follow height through chute

I do not recommend cutting like this but see how it behaves with the "trace off" does it go slow? Are you seeing this on all different cutting conditions? When the machine is retracted / home, is the z axis at 7.876 or close to it?

it doesnt lower with the trace off just welds from way up high, and when retracted it is at 5.370. so far it does it on every material

Ahhh. I believe that's it. Your z axis seems to be about two and a half inches off. So, material thickness + 1" for the sensor to turn on + being off by 2.5". The sensor is turning on way up high and slowly, slowly coming down to find the material.

Not too sure what to do. There are a few possibilities. Most likely is that is that one of the variables for the stroke length got messed up. I am sorry but I cannot remember exactly were it is but if you go into the "set laser" page or one of those buttons on the bottom of the cutting conditions page, you will find where it says x3000 y 1500 and z should be 200.

Anothere way to check this is when u first turn on the machine, retract all axes, see what z comes out at. Then hit the G50 and start. If the value changes, we are on the right track.

Have you changed batteries or anything recently? any chance the enocoder has lost its memory?

On most Amada lasers, the batteries are for the B-axis only. The Quattro, and the M2 use batteries for all axes, I believe.

What I think is happening is the when the machine first references, it reads a slowdown limit switch and then looks to the Fanuc parameters for the stroke length, grid shift, etc. After the G50 the position reads some Amada parameters and that's what I think got messed up.

ok i found all the perimeters but can't find stroke length anywhere. Absolute z reads 5.37 and machine reads 7.875

It sounds like you may be in the "current position" page. I am thinking cutting conditions page. "SET LASER" "MACRO" "AIV" look through those buttons as see if you can find anything. One of them says "calibration position" i don't think that's it.

Your machine will have z = 137... it should be 200.

ok i checked every button under condition and the utilities page and still nothing. it wont let me into the set laser page without a password?

nevermind i got in. it has set gas time for z upper stroke? at 1.00

Okay, all is not lost. Tomorrow I may be near a machine like yours. I will look around and see what I can see. In the mean time, when you start the machine tomorrow, go in to that "current position" page and see if all the Z's match after you retract. I am not opposed to posting the password for all the world to see but if I don't have to....

I understand completely i am posting a picture of the page. The password was pretty simple to figure out though thank god lol

WOW. That is not at all what I expected to see. Ummm, I am going to have to think on that for a while. Sorry...

lol thats what i was afraid of when i saw the numbers.. its all good. I just remember he said he did something to the "pots or pods" of the control board but i have no clue what. he had to flip a switch on one when they ran the long cable

Well, one other idea. Please check the program. Any program that you have run recently. Are there any "Z" values? There should not be.

Hookie,

If your still having problems i have attached the control board manual.
It has extensive information on the board functions, wiring & testing, so if you believe the fault is Related to the HS2000 board or coax this will shed light on the workings of the controller.
It doesn't say Amada but that's irrelevant, Hass make it for Amada.
good luck.

• http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=b5a54875-7485-4727-adbb-e7

awesome i think the quick approach function is what he said he flipped. the programs have no weird looking z values i see anywhere.

Strange or not are there any z's?

Actually no there are no z's. it uses the material registered to set a height i believe..

I looked at the pdf but got a little lost. Where can i find my quick approach setting?

nevermind im dumb. i mis read that

Personally, I have never had to mess with the hs-2000. I have changed a few out that have failed but never gotten into the nitty gritty of it.

This is just my opinion. I would be more concerned with the z axis being off by two and a half inches. Did you happen to notice what the position was when you first retracted this morning? If it was 7", at which point did it change?

P.s. I think the HS sensor board costs about $6000

Yeah our board was just installed in june. the poisition at startup was 5.387 even after retract..

just a thought, have you tested another cone? WACS or ECO done then run the head cal program?
Also if someone flipped a dip switch on the board, did the problem occur straight after, any chance they flipped another dip switch by accident.
Was it a genuine cable from Amada or did someone buy some coax & solder it up?

We replaced the board and it did it and the tech flipped a dip switch to fix it. We were running our external cable at the time. Well now that they replaced our internal cable and the plate that it comes with its doing it again. I was hoping its not a cone issue as it was fine before he replaced the internal. But the tech swears he didnt flip a switch last time and we should just buy the cone. My boss has his foot down that they just want our money so im stuck in the middle trying to figure it out.. save me please haha

Have you got a WACS or ECO cone to test?
I wouldn't buy a cone without knowing.

Does the head still have the problem if you run the external cable (for testing purposes)

We dont have any other cones to my knowledge but i will try the external wire test tomorrow and see what it does for sure

Have you checked the responsiveness of the height sensing when the head is down in height following mode? ie when the head is down slip a thin metal ruler between the nozzle & the sheet and use it to make the head trace up & down. (watch your fingers)
Is it as responsive as usual?
If the responsiveness is acceptable then I doubt the HS board or the coax is faulty. id be focusing on a setting or parameter.

with the shutter open??

i taped off the button inside the cone and hooked up our external cable and it kept giving me a z wire break alarm. So im back to the internal cable running slow again

I don't know if it will work, I have never tried it. You could put a negative value in the "thickness" setting of your cutting condition page. If the software will let you put it in, it might prove that the sensor, cone, wire, and sensor board are all working exactly as they should. It would then point us to the z position issue I have been harping on.

Just a thought.

P.S. If you decide to try this experiment. Make sure your last column on the cutting conditions page is set to standard.

how do i adjust the z position? id like to give it a try

Its in the upper left corner of the cutting conditions page. It literally says "thickness" I would put in -1.0 first, then go to -2.5 if the negative 1 works.

ok but wont that affect the material im currently cutting??

The "thickness" value just tells the sensor where to turn on. More or less. If you turn off the sensor, "trace off", the machine looks to the "thickness" setting to tell where the material is. The other day I had you run with the trace off. You said that it was way off the material and just welded. I would be willing to be that it was 2.5" plus "thickness" off the top of the material.

When the sensor is on, the cutting head starts at the home position, travels down to Zero + Thickness + 1" and then turns the sensor on to start "looking" for the material.

What I am proposing is, starting from the home position, going to zero + (-2.5) thickness then + 1" to turn on the sensor and start looking.

On another note. On the utility screen there is a button for 2nd machine position. Does it have a place for a "z" value? I have never used this feature before but it could certainly mess up the position for home.

i need coffee. my brain is not functioning right today. so when i zero it chang the thickness or while its cutting? lol im sorry im lost somewhere

No biggie. If I was there I would just fix it for ya. Easier. Plus I speak my own little laser language.

Super easy experiment.

Put the machine in 25% speed
Set the "thickness" to -2.5"
hit save.
Call up your program.
Turn the shutter key off the first time around.
Make sure the trace light is NOT on. (sensor active)
Hit start
Keep you had on the stop button just in case.


Keep in mind that its very cool you have an interest in your machine, how it works, and making it better. Your also saving your company a service call, possibly. Most operators would have give up about 39 posts ago. And, You helping me procrastinate from my paperwork.

Hey i appreciate all the help. I was the programmer for 8 years and then inherited the machine. So im trying to learn and get her back up to par. Ok quick question. If I set the thickness to -2.5 when i start the program the first line tells it what material it uses. Won't that make it default back to where its at??

The material call out m102, calls a specific cutting conditions file. That's the one u want to change.

For example, if you are cutting cold rolled 16 ga, your m102 will say, M102(CRS0.060). I would manually call up that file, then put in the -2.5 then hit save.....

so M102(-2.5)??

If you look right in the center of the attached file you can see it says "THICKNESS". That is where you put the -2.5

So, no, to answer your question. The M102 stays the same. It the cutting condition that you want to change, not the program. The other day I asked if the program has any z values. The program should have nothing to do with controlling the head motion.

• http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=bd874077-2cc4-496a-9077-81

Ahh gotcha!! ok i will do that next!!

It wont allow a - to be inserted??

okay,

What about the "2nd Machine position" on the Utility screen?

it has a z of 1.407 in it

Please set it to zero. Retract z, and tell me if z still says 5.5 (something)when its all the way home.

ok did it and it is at 5.437

Darn it. I am out of ideas for now. Maybe a day of gorging on turkey will jog something.

Oh, one quick thing, What if you put a G90 G92 X120.8661 Y61.0236 Z7.847 in the program.

I know... It goes against my moral fiber to put a z in the program. Its just in the name of science.

the code to switch the trace mode on is G32
Head will come down at the maximum allowable speed in trace mode (i.e it's sensing all the way down)
now slip the ruler between the sheet & the nozzle (shutter closed)

I will try both of the ideas and see if they work lol

What exactly causes a cone to go bad? It seems like a pretty simple piece so it's weird they go bad.

impact

No way to rebuild it?

I doubt it would be worth trying.

Amada considers the cone to be a consumable item. Impact and heat can cause them to go bad. They certainly don't last forever and it is a good idea to have a spare on hand. We've had cones that look fine to the naked eye but no longer sense properly. Installed a new cone and problems went away. It is very helpful when troubleshooting to have a spare available that is known to be good.

did you resolve it?

Sorry was sick on vacation all of last week. We are stil in the same boat. I', going to beg scrooge for a new cone for Christmas. lol

Do you have WACS on the machine?
If you the WACS head you should test it if you haven't already.
It's a bit of cash especially if it's not the problem.

I do have WACS but we never had it hooked up

So i hooked up the external cable on lunch and re calibrated it for the heck of it. now its running fine again. So does that point to the cone or could it be the internal cable they put in was bad or something?

Id say it's the cable is shagged.
About 50 posts ago i mentioned if the cable was a home made job or genuine Amada, did you confirm this?

It came straight from amada. I lost track of all the posts sorry

That's weird, maybe there is a bad solder joint or the connector is bad.
Compare the resistance or the 2 cables, end to end of the inner & shield, & check the inner to outer on the faulty cable, maybe the shield is touching the inner core?
Now id be focusing all my attention to the coaxial cable.

Well they are supposed to send the tech back out. As of now im just going to run the external and make up as much time as we can. I will check for sure when he comes back though. Thank you guys so much for all the help and patience. It is awesome to have a forum like this. I seemed to have learned so much in the couple months ive been on here.

On the NT, if you want to use a 10" focus lens, there is an adaptor / extension piece you put on in place of the cone, then you put the same cone on to the bottom of the adaptor. It extends the distance between the tip of the nozzle and the focus lens by 2.5 inches. Exactly the amount we are looking at. Or at least pretty close.

I suspect that when you changed from the internal wire to external wire. You changed the status of the switch that tells the machine which cone is on there. When it's going slow, it thinks it has the 10" cone on there. Now, the machine thinks it has the 7.5"lens set up.

You can confirm this theory by looking at the z position. I bet it's back to normal.

Thats weirx. I dont think we even own a 10 inch lens. I will check it in the morning and let ya know for sure. Also i found a company in California that is going to rebuild our old cones for us for a fraction of what they are to replace so i should have it back in a couple weeks so once and for all hopefully we will be cooking again lol

Tap a Keg and ring the bells!! We are back up to 100%!! It turns out the Tech wired the micro switch on the bottom of our internal plate backwards. we are good now! Thank you all very much!!

well done, I can't get my head around why a couple of weeks ago you changed to the external coax & it was still not working & you changed it back, then just now you changed to external coax again & it worked, and the problem was in fact the micro switch wiring.
It's enough to do ones head in.
Anyway glad it's resolved.

When i did the coax i had forgot to re calibrate the head with the trace off i believe. So when i did it this week it worked. But i cant figure out why the tech wouldn't check his wires.. idk

I meant the external. I forgot to turn trace off so it wouldn't let me calibrare.. I was in a flurry trying and went too fast and it bit me in the butt.. but i am thankful for everyone's help on here for sure.

The reason ausman and I think others can't get a handle on what happened is because we don't have the whole story.

My idea of what happened, and even that doesn't add up completely, goes like this:

When the guy cam in to replace the short z sensor cable in side the head, he broke, bumped it wired a switch incorrectly. The z sensor internal wire is right next to two switches on the very bottom of the cutting head. One of these switches tells the control the cutting cone is on, the other tells the control that the 10" lens adapter is on. As I previously stated, which no one read, the ten inch lens adapter off sets the z axis by 2.5 inches making the stroke length that much shorter.

So, to put it all together... The program starts, the head starts to comes down, the control looks at the " the thicknesses " adds one inch to that number and turns on the sensor. Now, the z axis is offset by 2.5" because a mechanic is not careful, plus the standard one inch, plus the thickness and turns on the sensor and traveled very slowly downward looking for the material. (How many times have I typed this?)

The part that is missing, and I am not sure how or why it's missing. At some point the machine should have generated a "lens not correct" alarm. I can not imagine how the mechanic could have bypassed this function/error code.

My point is, not the machine's fault, mechanic's. I hope no one got charged for the service call.

My other point. I like helping people out. I like to think I know a thing or two about these machines. If I am going to keep contributing, give me a damn purple star, read what I write, if you don't understand, ask questions, do the experiments I propose unless you think you are really going to break something, report the results. I am paid professional, just not by the forum.

Well said,
LASAERNINJA you nailed the problem on the very 1st comment, & I just over complicated it.

The part I missed is that the head was travelling at high speed in the down direction then switching to sensing (slow speed) 3.5" before it was supposed to. there should have been about 4.5" of high speed Z travel before switching to sensing.

I was convinced it was a coax problem, the very 1st comment that it crashed every time indicated to me that the responsiveness or calibration was out, if the sensing is coming on a few inches early the last thing I would expect is a crash.

No, I apologize. I get a little reved up sometimes. I think it's either beer kids, or life on the road.

Well the wire on the left is not even hooked up when you remove the back plate. He only had the wires on the right micro switch wired. So maybe the other micro switch tells it that the lens is incorrect and he just didnt mess with that one? I honestly Don't have a clue. I can program with the best but when it comes to servicing Im a blind man in an orgy. Sorry I messed up the calibration process in the first place on the external the first try, but thanks for not giving up on me. We are having a conference call with Amada today because this is the 2nd time we have had something like this. We have paid out a little over 109,000 the past year and a half for parts on this that they said we need and it still wouldn't run right. You guys just walked me through it with no training on my part and got us back up to 100%. If youre ever in missouri let me know and I will get the drinks all night.

Andrew