Light Machine Corp. Benchman XTr (retrofit)

Wow,
You have one of the first XT machines we made.
It is probably made with hybridized VMC4000 PCBs unless it had an upgrade during its lifetime.
Good luck with it.
Don

Yep. The boards say "Series 4000." So when you say "Good luck," is that like "Good luck, because those things were real nightmares," or just a general salutation? I wonder if my problems getting the ATC to work properly are linked to the year of my machine. Did the ATC hardware change significantly after 1999? The only software I have access to if what Intelitek has on their site.

Good Luck is a general salutation. The initial XT machines were 4000 series PCBs with a lot of cuts and jumps on them to increase and adjust their functionality. Once they were working, they worked well. If there were issues, troubleshooting was a major issue due to the amount and complexity of the rework. One of my first tasks was to redesign the multiple board systems into a single board that was jumper selectable for the user options. I still have my documentation for the older systems (I believe it is complete) so if you need electrical assistance, I should be able to help. The ATC did not change during my tenure at Light Machines. It is simply controlled via RS232 with some relatively simple handshaking to the machine I/O. Please describe your ATC issues and I will try to help.

The pneumatics won't work right. Using the ATC interface I could sometimes get the platter to go down, but then the UP button did nothing. The platter would move inwards toward the spindle head (smacking into it if if wasn't high enough) but would not move back to its normal position. I did get the drawbar to work, both via the ATC interface in the software and with the front panel button, but now neither works. The only thing that works is platter indexing; it will rotate to proper tool number, but since the pneumatics don't work it just goes into error mode since the tool wasn't changed properly. I know all the pneumatic solenoids are working fine because I can trigger them with 24 VDC. I had to disassemble the ATC to get the XT into my garage and I might have reconnected air lines incorrectly, but I'm confident I have that straightened out now. But I've reset the ATC quite a few times now and I'm afraid I fouled everything up. Because now I can't get anything to do anything (with the exception of indexing the platter). Very frustrating.

Are you saying that if you disconnect the solenoids from the control that you can make all the physical components move as expected by applying 24V ? I assume you've double-checked your air supply for volume and pressure.

I guess I should have said that the pneumatics work as expected when I independently apply 24 VDC to the right solenoids. I apply the voltage to the right solenoid and the platter goes down, remove the voltage and it goes back up. Same for moving the platter in and out. So the pneumatics alone work fine. The problem is I can't get the Benchman to send those 24 volts to the solenoids when I ask it to. Either the program is not communicating properly with the ATC card or the card itself is bad. I also suspect that the sensors that monitor the horizontal and vertical position of the platter were installed incorrectly by the idiot who reassembled the ATC after the XT was moved--that would be me. The ATC seems to think the platter is down when it's up and in when it's out because I get warning messages about the tool changer being in an "unsafe" position when it is clearly not. And the more I monkey with this thing the worse I seem to make it...

There are sensors at each end of the pneumatic travel. If one of the sensors has shifted slightly, it may not trigger. Unless the sensors are in the "safe" positions (Platter out and up) it is considered "unsafe". I do not recall the exact screens for operation of the toolchanger, but I thought there was a status screen where you should be able to make the adjustments. Do you have the schematic for the board? if so, can you troubleshoot with a meter to see if your sensor signals are where they should be.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to track down any schematics for the ATC, and the setup screens I've found don't seem to have much input. I will poke around the board will a DMM and see where the 24VDC is coming from and maybe try adjusting the position sensors. I wonder how much Intelitek wants for a replacement ATC board if they even have any left.

Here is the ATC schematic. Check that the correct sensors are wired to J3 and J4 and that you see the voltage at the outputs of the ILQ chips. We had some issues in the past with the ILQ5 chips. Also if you connect the Host interface to a RS-232 communication app, I believe it is <shift>H or <ctrl>H or <alt>H will bring up the onboard diagnostics, that should help. Just make sure that you are seeing the transitions when the platter moves into and out of position. Electrically, anything that is not "in position" is "out of position" and if the toolchanger is not out and up then it is "unsafe" and operation will not happen.

Also, the front panel ATC controls are enabled only if the ATC dialog box is open in the software.