Ultra3000 Drive not Enabling.

AlexDB

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Join Date
Mar 2018
Location
TX
Posts
8
Greetings All!

Preface: I am a complete "fresh out of the womb"-type novice when it comes to PLC programming. I helped get a Logix 500 PLC up and running with a few notes of documentation and a whoooole lot of Google-ing. After that, I was thrown into running and maintaining a retro-fitted machine backed by a Logix5555 PLC. It was running smoothly with a few missteps here and there but now I'm about at wit's end with my current problem.

Our machine has 3 Ultra3000 servo drives and they are for the x, y, and z axes. We had a fault in our x-axis drive saying that there was an overtemp/commutation error in the motor. We got an AB technician out here and they traced it back to the drive and cable being bad so we had them both replaced. Upon installing the new parts, I am now running into a problem where I cannot enable the X-axis servo drive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
- Alex

Additional details:
- The drive status is "4", the Network Status light is solid green, and the module status light is flashing green.
- In the RSLogix file, the MSO motion instruction is at "ER" but I'm not sure how to figure out why it says that.
- I have tried switching the encoder cable to the other two motors and it still comes up with the same thing, so I don't think it's a motor issue.

EDIT: Okay, so I have done a little more digging and found that my XaxisMotionInst[1].ERR value is set to "40" and if I am reading this correctly, that means that the drive is locally disabled. I tried finding the "Drive Enable Input" checkbox in the axis properties and could not find it.

Once again, thanks for any help that can be given and pardon my ignorance when it comes to PLCs.
 
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I don't think that is an option with the Ultra3000 drives. By the status of 4 I assume you are using SERCOS.

When I have used them in the past I have had to break out the enable from the high density CN1 terminal. This is same place you need to terminate limit and home sensors.
 
I don't think that is an option with the Ultra3000 drives. By the status of 4 I assume you are using SERCOS.

When I have used them in the past I have had to break out the enable from the high density CN1 terminal. This is same place you need to terminate limit and home sensors.

Yes, I am in fact using communicating via SERCOS. As for breaking out the enable from the CN1 terminal, do you mean physically extending the terminal pin out to go somewhere else?

Correction. I just added added one to a project. The enable input is in the axis properties Drive/Motor tab.

I have tried looking for the Drive/Motor tab, but I do not have that in my version of RSLogix. I only have two seperate tabs for "Drive" and "Motor/Feedback" and neither of them (as well as any of the other tabs, for that matter) have anything along the lines of "Enable input".
 
Was this system was running with the existing hardware or have you modified it?

The dialogs have changed a lot with the different firmware revisions.

The CN1 connector the horrible 44 pin connector on the front of the drive. Is there a connector plugged into it?
 
EDIT: Okay, so I have done a little more digging and found that my XaxisMotionInst[1].ERR value is set to "40" and if I am reading this correctly, that means that the drive is locally disabled. I tried finding the "Drive Enable Input" checkbox in the axis properties and could not find it.

If the drive is locally (hardware) disabled, as all symptoms suggest, the MSO will fail if the Drive Enable Input action is set to Disable Drive. You will likely find this setting under the Axis Properties, Fault Action tab. As a test, I believe you can change this to Status Only and attempt to enable the drive.

If this works, it is advisable to correct the root cause of the drive not getting the enable input. Maybe a wiring problem on the connector as suggested in other posts.

If I understand your environment correctly (U3K, Sercos, RSLogix V16 or earlier), you can monitor the status of this input by the AXIS_SERVO_DRIVE tag, element .EnableInputStatus
 
You may need to go online with Ultraware directly to the U3000 and click on the enable button.

But cycling power should restore the software enable in the U3000.

Alan

I should have said that I first tried cycling power to the drive as well as the whole chassis with no success.

Was this system was running with the existing hardware or have you modified it?

The dialogs have changed a lot with the different firmware revisions.

The CN1 connector the horrible 44 pin connector on the front of the drive. Is there a connector plugged into it?

Geoff, I'll answer your questions in order:
The system WAS running with all of the hardware that is in it at the time of fault. After the fault was cleared, I started getting the "locally disabled" error. I then had a AB tech come out here and they had told us that the drive itself was faulting and suggested we get a rebuilt on as well as a new encoder cable. Those came in yesterday and since I installed them, I have not been getting intermittent overtemp/commutation faults like I was before we switched the drives.

image1.jpg


Yeah, there is a cable that is hooked up to it. The wire that goes to the Enable Drive feeds into a Relay Output module and I have hit it with the multi-meter and I am getting continuity between the wire ends so I would imagine that I SHOULD be good there.

If the drive is locally (hardware) disabled, as all symptoms suggest, the MSO will fail if the Drive Enable Input action is set to Disable Drive. You will likely find this setting under the Axis Properties, Fault Action tab. As a test, I believe you can change this to Status Only and attempt to enable the drive.

If this works, it is advisable to correct the root cause of the drive not getting the enable input. Maybe a wiring problem on the connector as suggested in other posts.

If I understand your environment correctly (U3K, Sercos, RSLogix V16 or earlier), you can monitor the status of this input by the AXIS_SERVO_DRIVE tag, element .EnableInputStatus

Mispeld, I will tackle these in order as I did Geoff earlier;
image2.jpg

I went into the Fault Action tab as you suggested, and this is what the drive was set to already so there isn't anything I can do from there. If it was a wiring problem, would that mean that there was a shorted out wire that would keep me from reading continuity from the Relay Output to the CN1 port?

IMG_0558.jpg

Is this what you are talking about regarding ".EnableInputStatus"? If not, is there somewhere else I should be looking?

Also, the environment I'm working with is U3k, Sercos, RSLogix 11.11, and I'm also not sure if it matters, but as I stated earlier, some of the CN1 connector pins are spliced off and run to a Analog Relay module.

Thanks,
Alex
 
Also, the environment I'm working with is U3k, Sercos, RSLogix 11.11...

I can only go back as far as RSLogix 12, and see that the first item on the Axis Properties, Fault Action is "Drive Enable Input" just above "Drive Thermal"

However, in the offline program I am looking at, it is "grayed out" and forced to the setting of Disable Drive. (In my case, under the Drive/Motor tab, the "Drive Enable Input Fault" is not checked, leading to no fault configuration option.)

As far as the <axis>.EnableInputStatus tag goes, it is available through the <axis> tag, which you can identify through the Axis Properties, Tag window (at least in rev 12). You will look for this in Controller Tags, (with type AXIS_SERVO_DRIVE), and expand it members. Way down the list of items, you will find the <axis>.DriveStatus member, that can be further expanded to the individual status items. One of these should be the EnableInputStatus. You can cross-check this input status with the external relay you also have.

Just above the <axis>.DriveStatus (in rev 12) is the DCBusVoltage tag. This is also helpful to see whether you have motor power going to the drive. But, you have to ask for this under Real Time Axis Information on the Drive/Motor tab. There are only two optional real time "attributes" via Sercos, and this is a helpful choice.
 
I can only go back as far as RSLogix 12, and see that the first item on the Axis Properties, Fault Action is "Drive Enable Input" just above "Drive Thermal"

However, in the offline program I am looking at, it is "grayed out" and forced to the setting of Disable Drive. (In my case, under the Drive/Motor tab, the "Drive Enable Input Fault" is not checked, leading to no fault configuration option.)

As far as the <axis>.EnableInputStatus tag goes, it is available through the <axis> tag, which you can identify through the Axis Properties, Tag window (at least in rev 12). You will look for this in Controller Tags, (with type AXIS_SERVO_DRIVE), and expand it members. Way down the list of items, you will find the <axis>.DriveStatus member, that can be further expanded to the individual status items. One of these should be the EnableInputStatus. You can cross-check this input status with the external relay you also have.

Just above the <axis>.DriveStatus (in rev 12) is the DCBusVoltage tag. This is also helpful to see whether you have motor power going to the drive. But, you have to ask for this under Real Time Axis Information on the Drive/Motor tab. There are only two optional real time "attributes" via Sercos, and this is a helpful choice.

Okay, found the Drivestatus Tag and scrolled through that and there were only 4 tags under that which were marked as "1".
4 - Reserved
17 - Velocity StandStill
19 - Torque Threshold Status
31 - Reserved

I saw that "11" is my EnableInputStatus and that was marked 0. Do these values relate to the pins on the CN1 connector? And if not, would these values just be pullled via the encoder cable from the motor to the drive?

As for the "<axis>.DCBusVoltage" that is really cool to be able to keep an eye on that, thank you! I'm not sure if that would be the problem because all three of my axes are coming up ~340+-2.

Thanks,
Alex
 
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With a U3K Sercos drive, you will need to have that Drive Enable input energized, unless there is some way to get around it by going directly into the drive to bypass it. Since it had been a working system, this is probably not what you want to do.

Rather, you want to get I/O power on pin CN1-31, the dedicated Enable Input for U3K Sercos drives. In one of the pictures, it looks like a "home-made" cable on CN1. So you will need to figure out which wire corresponds to pin 31, and check whether it has somewhere between 12 and 24 VDC on it. Maybe there are drawings to help, or wire labels, or clues from the other two drives. If you can measure volts on the wire, then the D-shell connector would be something to examine (also important would be CN1-27 IO common).

On the other hand, if no voltage on the wire you think is going to pin 31 (referenced to the wire you think is going to CN1-27), then you need to go back in the circuit to see what supposed to be enabling the drive, such as an auxilary contact from the main power contactor. Since you have bus power, the controlling contactor appears to be pulled in. This implies E-stop circuits are OK. Maybe another process stop is active.

As a side note, the Allen-Bradley part 2090-U3BB-DM12 is a convenient way to access CN1 for limited, but typical, control of the Sercos drive. This may be a better option than re-building a faulty cable or connector going into CN1. I would guess this product was not available when your system was built.
 
I believe if you go online with, Ultraware you can configure the enable to be "software AND hardware" or "software OR hardware"

I will be able to look at a Sercos U3000 tomorrow to check if this option is available, I know it is on Devicenet drives.

Alan.
 
With a U3K Sercos drive, you will need to have that Drive Enable input energized, unless there is some way to get around it by going directly into the drive to bypass it. Since it had been a working system, this is probably not what you want to do.

Rather, you want to get I/O power on pin CN1-31, the dedicated Enable Input for U3K Sercos drives. In one of the pictures, it looks like a "home-made" cable on CN1. So you will need to figure out which wire corresponds to pin 31, and check whether it has somewhere between 12 and 24 VDC on it. Maybe there are drawings to help, or wire labels, or clues from the other two drives. If you can measure volts on the wire, then the D-shell connector would be something to examine (also important would be CN1-27 IO common).

On the other hand, if no voltage on the wire you think is going to pin 31 (referenced to the wire you think is going to CN1-27), then you need to go back in the circuit to see what supposed to be enabling the drive, such as an auxilary contact from the main power contactor. Since you have bus power, the controlling contactor appears to be pulled in. This implies E-stop circuits are OK. Maybe another process stop is active.

As a side note, the Allen-Bradley part 2090-U3BB-DM12 is a convenient way to access CN1 for limited, but typical, control of the Sercos drive. This may be a better option than re-building a faulty cable or connector going into CN1. I would guess this product was not available when your system was built.

Thank you, Mispeld! I took that connector apart and found that whoever assembled it did kind of a bad job soldering the wire to the pin and it snapped off. I went and took my multimeter to the two ends of the wire and was getting an intermittent reading. So I cut the wire back ~1" and it seems to be fine now. Going to try soldering it back onto that CN1 pin and see if I can get that enable signal to work correctly. You said that "Allen-Bradley part 2090-U3BB-DM12" was good for limited control. But could I use that as my main CN1 pinout connector?

Thank you very much for you help!



I believe if you go online with, Ultraware you can configure the enable to be "software AND hardware" or "software OR hardware"

I will be able to look at a Sercos U3000 tomorrow to check if this option is available, I know it is on Devicenet drives.

Alan.

I do not have Ultraware software and the drive was configured via RSlogix. Is there a way that I could do that thru Logix?
 
You said that "Allen-Bradley part 2090-U3BB-DM12" was good for limited control. But could I use that as my main CN1 pinout connector?

Thank you very much for you help!

You're welcome for the help...hopefully the repaired cable will get you running again.

There are two AB products for breaking out CN1, the DM44 and DM12. The DM44 provides screw-terminal access to 36 of the CN1 signals, and the DM12 has access to 11.

For a Sercos drive with only the typical inputs -- Enable, Home, Overtravel, Brake, Registration, and Auxilary Power -- the DM12 is sufficient and easier to deal with than the DM44. So, if your application only uses a subset of those typical inputs, the DM12 can replace the connector with a bad solder job; that is, if you can wait long enough to get one.

There is some detail at the attached link (four-page PDF), showing signals/pin connections available through both options.

Control Interface Breakout Boards
 

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