Power Outage- Scrapped Parts

[cincy k]

How does everyone deal with power outages? I have 3 verticals and when the power surges or fails for even a split second the Z axis drops 30-40 thou. How do you deal with this issue? It seems there are some pretty high end parts being machined by folks here and I can't imagine not having a way to deal with this.

 

Thanks.

[Del.]

That's an excellent question. Lucky for me on the WEDM'S it has no effect whatsoever.

[crazy^millman]

Scrap the parts if they get scrapped and submit a claim to the insurance company. That is what liability insurance is for. Happens enough then need to talk to the power company and see if they can put your company on a direct line verses a feed line.

[JAMMAN]

It happens all the time around here. The mills just go down but we have one old Mazak lathe that will drift in Z until it hits the chuck. No way to stop it either just stand back and hold your ears.

 

My Fadal won't even shut off for a spike, it's like it has it's own power supply LOL. I have seen like a 1.5 second outage that killed everything in the building including the compressor and the computer systems... the fadal kept on running.

[djstedman]

Where I am working its basically what Ron said.. cross your fingers and hope its not an issue when your finishing.. if it is then its an insurance claim.. I am interested to hear if anyone has come up with a better solution..

[Sticky]

I don't have any verticals anymore but when I did my Matsuura vmc's did not do this. I had a friend that used to run a shop near by that had two newer Haas vmc's. The first one he bought had this problem, when he complained they gave him the option to install something for about $1500-2500 or so that would prevent this, no idea what it was unfortunately.

 

I do know that the robot on my mazak lathe will drop about a .375" or so when it loses power.

[Newbeeee™]

Big hold-up capacitors in your control are required.

 

I don't like the idea of the Mazak lathe trundling into the chuck.

ooooohhhhhhh

[cincy k]

I've seen on the Hass machine build-up that they have an early power failure detect function. I'm not sure how it works though. I recall some similar function on a Mori NH from 07 that I ran. Don't remember having used it to see how well it functioned. I know of a very large high-end shop locally that installed some sort of battery backup system for some large Makinos they have. I'm trying to get some more info on it. I'm sure it's well beyond what I could afford.

 

I didn't even think about the insurance thing. That is why you have insurance isn't it.   

[Tinyfxds]

We had insurance specifically for power cuts.  There was a time when the industrial park we were in was under a lot of construction and power cuts were frequent, sometimes for hours.  P-100 was the code on our time sheet so accounting new when to claim those hours under insurance.

[rrichard]

Cincy,

   If you have nitrogen bottles on you Z's might check the pressure, may need to be topped off?

[Thad]

 

My Fadal won't even shut off for a spike, it's like it has it's own power supply LOL. I have seen like a 1.5 second outage that killed everything in the building including the compressor and the computer systems... the fadal kept on running.

 

Take *that*, you Fadal bashers!

[petro7]

we have the same problem here, we were told to look into surge protectors on the incoming power plus each machine. it will be worth it in the long run. the last spike took the drive out of my vdf lathe, by the time we found someone to replace the drive and get the machine up and run we were into $20000. 

[cincy k]

No nitrogen counterbalance for me.

[CJep]

We use uninterruptible power supplies on the 3D printers to keep from frying the electronics and from crashing the machine due to power loss and spikes.

 

http://www.somersetpowersystems.com/

 

 

edit: not certain what happened there but it's working now

[cincy k]

Link doesn't work. Do you have another?

[Bridgeportboy]

Check these guys out.

 

http://cncshield.com/

[The_kid]

I can't even imagine a lathe just wondering into its chuck that would be "exciting"  I thought that servos have brakes on them that engage when power is cut. I run into this when I'm tearing into machines to fix them.  

[civiceg]

Depending on what machine, tears followed by anger. Bridgeport/Hardinge VMC moved .025 on me. Old Haas vf6...not even an alarm.

[The Cathedral]

All of our verticals will drop in the z a bit and free wheel for several minutes, which--if the drop didn't destroy the tool or part--burns it up pretty nice.

 

We lose power maybe, maybe, once a year. I don't know what it is but when they wired this area they prepared it for Armageddon. It seems the only kink in the infrastructure is when a drunk driver smashes into a pole.